VETERANS DAY OF REMEMBRANCE. Presented by The American Legion, Kirk Wilder, and Steve Sparks, with help from friends. At The Evergreen Cemetery, Anderson Valley Way, Boonville, California. 10.30am, Sunday, 11th November, 2018. A Two-Minute Silence will be observed at 11am. “The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month.” Valley folks are encouraged to attend this important Service of Remembrance. This is not a political or religious event. It is simply an opportunity for the community of Anderson Valley to show its support and gratitude for both the men and women who gave their lives or were wounded in the service of their country, and also those who have served or continue to serve, so that we may have the freedoms and liberties that we enjoy today… We hope to see you there. Following the Service, there will be a gathering at The Buckhorn and also a complimentary BBQ at the Veterans Hall hosted by the AV Veterans. (Steve Sparks)

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, introducing this season’s basketball coaches at Anderson Valley High School:

• Junior High: Travis Foote
• Girls JV: J.R. Collins
• Girls Varsity: Tony Sanchez
• Boys JV & Varsity: Brian Jette

OUR HIGH  SCHOOL’S perennially-in-the-playoffs soccer team has again made it into the quarter-finals of the small school championships with a 2-0 win last week over Averroes of Fremont. The Panthers take on Waldorf of San Francisco today (Wednesday afternoon, November 7th) in San Francisco.

HALLOWEEN came and went quietly in the Anderson Valley, with tiny ghosts and goblins descending mostly on Airport Estates where, I’m reliably informed, the typical home spent a hundred bucks on candy. Why Airport Estates? The houses are in close proximity, and the tiny ghosts and goblins can emerge with whole bags of treats in less than an hour.

THE ONLY DISTURBING visual we saw on Halloween — a night of major mischief in times gone by — was the constant one of vehicles speeding through Boonville heedless of the groups of children, most with parents, most accompanying parents at least carrying flashlights, as they moved through town on the mostly dark road sides. However, it is reassuring to see traffic stopping for the flashing red lights of our school buses, although I’m sure our bus drivers can cite any number of instances where drivers hurtled dangerously on past them as they boarded and disembarked children. About the traffic? We speak only from our observation deck in central Boonville.

THE AVA didn't leave Boonville last Wednesday afternoon in a timely manner. In fact, it didn’t leave at all as it unfailingly has for forty years with Jan the Mail Lady. Jan took a rare day off. Her replacement forgot to pick up the paper-paper. Our bags of outbound papers languished overnight on the landing to the rear of the Boonville Post Office. The paper-paper was at least a day late reaching subscribers and stores outside the Anderson Valley, and the goddess only knows when it will reach people outside California. Jan the Mail Lady herself called us with the bad news. She was as contrite as if the error were hers, but Jan the Mail Lady doesn't make errors and, as one of those increasingly rare persons in government at all levels who is genuinely troubled when things go awry, especially things she feels responsible for, Jan the Mail Lady felt obligated to call us to explain what happened. In a time when undeserved superlatives are heaped on everything from sandwiches to exploding automobiles — "the greatest; amazing; unique; awesome" — Jan the Mail Lady has quietly gotten it done from Cloverdale to Point Arena and back six days a week for 40 years, a truly awesome record.

BOONVILLE'S INFRASTRUCTURE, an on-line exchange:

Mr. Wendel of Fort Bragg writes: “To avoid a big surprise when you open your “rate letter” next year, be aware that the lowest monthly fixed charges for (definitely not modern infrastructure) water and sewer service at a single-family residence in Fort Bragg is $77…and that’s only if you do not use any water; it’s just to have the mandatory service available at your home. The variable water and sewer charges are added to that. Are there any preliminary hints about the rate structure in Boonville?

Mark Scaramella replies: Standby fees are common in water system rate structures. As far as hints go, so far all we know is that because Anderson Valley/Boonville is considered economically depressed by census standards, rates cannot exceed 2% of average monthly household income if state grant funds are used to install the systems. That translates to something like $60-$70 per month for water and $60-$70 for sewer. Exactly how that gets worked out — if it’s worked out — remains to be seen.

ANOTHER READER WRITES, citing the article linked below: “Folks in Boonville need to understand that over time their whole aquifer may become polluted, even those outside the project zone: nytimes.com/2018/11/03/us/water-contaminated-rural-america.html

MARCUS CALDWELL, the young Willits man accused of a brutal rape of a Willits woman nearly a year ago, was arrested here in Boonville as he worked on tree trimming job for PG&E near Boont Berry Farm. Caldwell’s dna identified him as the woman’s attacker: theava.com/archives/89552#7

INTERESTING REPORT ON KZYX by Alice Woefle on the local demise of small school football. Robert Pinoli, the Athletic Director at Boonville High School, pointed out that a crucial factor in football's disappearance, even 8-man, in the County's outback schools is declining enrollment generally. The neo-popularity of futbol of course coincides with the arrival over the past forty years of Mexican immigrants, and futbol, aka soccer, is the national sport of most countries in the world, including Mexico. In 1971 there was not a single Spanish-speaking student enrolled in the Anderson Valley schools. Today that enrollment is 80% Spanish-speaking.

THERE ARE OTHER OBJECTIONS to football from many parents reacting to studies that reveal at the advanced levels of the game, levels that very few young men achieve, permanent brain damage is an occupational hazard. At the high school level permanent brain damage is much less likely because collisions among high school students aren't nearly so fierce as they are at the college and pro levels of the game. Soccer isn't exactly non-violent; using your head to get a one pound soccer ball down field ten thousand times as a youngster couldn't be all that great for the old noodle.

MS. WOEFLE'S REPORT partly emanated from Potter Valley where Russ Todd informed the reporter that "Soccer is a communist sport." We could have used a follow-up question, Ms. W. Was the guy joking? But given the known levels of scholarship in PV probably not. Looked at one way you could say the Potter Valley Diversion is a communist project devised by Potter Valley's noble sons of the soil like Todd — the Potter Valley Politburo — to guarantee them virtually free water for a at the expense of downstream households — the water proletariat. But futbol less violent than football? Yeah, but there’s plenty of contact in all sports, and didn't a couple of Central American countries go to war over the outcome of a soccer match? And aren't international soccer contests also fraught with mass rioting by nationalist yobbos, Brit fans being so bad they're banned by some countries?

AS SOMEONE ONCE SAID, “Football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, and soccer is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen."

BRIAN MENDOZA, 17, died early Friday evening when his car unaccountably left the pavement and hit a tree off Old River Road, which runs between Hopland and Ukiah. Brian is the son of Jose “Chato” Mendoza and Olga Mendoza, long-time residents of the Anderson Valley. Brian was a senior at Anderson Valley High School.

LOGGING? DOWNTOWN NAVARRO? MRC is marking out a large-scale cut for the redwoods that make Navarro, Navarro. Deep Enders are already complaining, and praying for rains, heavy rains. Much more about this one to come.

DARKNESS AT NOON. Blood red sun, fires raging at both ends of the state, suffocating smoke for miles, mass shootings, stock market gyrating, a 3.7 earthquake in Willits, Trump. The great beast of the apocalypse stirs in his troubled sleep. The disastrous fire out of Butte County created a deathly pall of suffocating smoke on Mendocino County beginning last Thursday afternoon that has still not fully lifted on Monday.

AIR QUALITY in Ukiah last Friday afternoon was the worst in the world, ahead of perennial champs New Delhi and Beijing. The Ukiah air monitoring station showed small particulate matter for an air quality rating of 367, meaning it’s bad. Any reading over 250 is described as: “May cause respiratory impact even on healthy people, and serious health impacts on people with lung/heart disease. The health impacts may be experienced even during light physical activity.” Many people on the streets in Ukiah wore medical grade masks on. Traffic was light for a Friday. Business seemed to be down, and the thick layer of smoke kept temperature to a cool 70 Friday afternoon. Temps seemed to be cooler than the weather people predicted due to smoke cover.

SCHOOLS WERE CLOSED throughout Mendocino County, including schools in the Anderson Valley. Smoke was heavy in The Valley and especially tough on allergy sufferers. Ash was visible on cars, and the hills couldn’t be seen from the valley floor. Smoke was much heavier than during the Valley Fires. The County admin office closed for the day.

THE AV HEALTH CENTER has a limited stock of N95 masks available for anyone in need of a face mask. Stop by to pick one up or call ahead. The air quality is poor, please stay protected!

AV FIRE CHIEF Andres Avila reported no AV Fire units had been requested to fight distant fires so far. But, “the Mendocino Unit is stripped down, we could end up staffing the CalFire Station in Boonville if needed.” The Chief continued, “I am very happy to have little to report. We received a dispatch for a traffic collision with fire in Yorkville that had spread into the vegetation. Considering the current CalFire engine and dozer drawdown [for the Paradise/Camp fire], along with smoke creating a limited visibility hazard for aircraft, we would have had a challenge on our hands. We arrived to find a single van overturned off the roadway with the patient self-extricated and no fire! The patient was released at scene with no injuries and CHP remained at scene to remove the vehicle. This is the way we like our emergencies to end up!”

NOT A HINT of election monkey business in Boonville. There couldn’t be what with Carolyn Short, Linda McClure, Bob Vaughn, and Kathleen McKenna monitoring the local vote. Ms. McKenna commented on the turnout: Not just "pretty good," but “pretty good!" And indeed at noon the Fairgrounds polling place had more than a dozen voters in it, so many that three or four had to use side tables to fill out their ballots because the four fold-out privacy booths were occupied. There were also four or five people in line waiting to get their ballots. Bob Vaughn directed me to drop my mail-in ballot into "the side pocket." "I already sank the nine-ball," I said. “Doesn't matter," said Vaughn, "all those go in the side pocket." The side pocket of the ballot box was reserved for mail-in ballots being turned in on election day. I did as instructed, and, having completed my citizen’s obligation, shuffled back down the street to my work station. (MS)

THE ANDERSON VALLEY AMBULANCE SERVICE will hold its annual meeting on November 19, 2018 at 7 PM at 13325 Estate Drive in Boonville. The Anderson Valley Ambulance Service Board of Directors welcomes anyone interested in attending. (Nancy Charles, Secretary)

EYES ONLY, ANDERSON VALLEY Joan Burroughs writes: “The whole area from Ornbaun Road to the Fairgrounds was once home to Indians who camped in the areas for thousands of years. Frank Luff (from the Yokayo Indian tribe) said the area where the Canaris family put in a “pond” (just west of the high school) is near the Indian burial grounds, or under it as the case might be. My grandmother, Blossom told me many times about visiting the Pomo Indian children in the late 1890s across the creek from Missouri house. Arrow heads and shells are still occasionally found; the area in Boonville was called Lemkolil (tree burned creek place). The Indians camped there all summer and went over a trail to the coast that became a large part of today’s Mountain View Road. Is David Severn busy these days? I know he is involved in helping Indians preserve their sites. Might some attention to the sacred Indian areas in the project plan save us all from this massive intrusion and also honor the Indians who were here before any of us savages arrived?” 

A READER SENDS US a rather frightening water and sewage rate increase mailer from the Westport Water District. Addressed to its customers, the sender notes, “I’d guess that Westport is roughly the size of Boonville but, unlike Boonville, has an existing centralized water and sewage system. As you can see, customers of the Westport Water District went from $185 a month for water and sewage disposal to $196 a month, as of July 1st. If you're a Westport commercial business you now pay $308 a month. This is per month. Sure hope you can do your systems for less or have deep pockets."

ANDERSON VALLEY HEALTH CENTER IS HIRING! Contact us at 707-895-3477 for more information on the available positions.

NIKKI DAGGS had recently moved to Anderson Valley when she saw a flyer for the EMT class at AVFD. Between her work taking care of elders through IHSS and living relatively far from medical services, she thought it would be good to have EMS skills. After taking the class Nikki didn't feel ready to for patient care but enjoyed being part of the team and driving the large equipment - so she signed up as an ambulance driver. "I enjoy it and jump in on shifts quite a bit." My (9 year old) daughter sees me running out on calls and she thinks that's pretty cool. I like to be part of something and helping. I've met some cool people and made some good friends."

JOSH MATHIAS joined AVFD last year in order to give back to the community where he's able to earn a livelihood in the family real estate business. He first signed up as an ambulance driver and was quickly recruited for firefighter duty. "It feels good when people thank you for helping them get to the hospital on their worst day. It's a serious commitment but it's a lot of fun and there's a lot you take away from it - namely, those life skills that you learn. And a sense of community. Boonville feels bigger since I've become a member of the department. I have two more buildings [the firehouse and the ambulance quarters] that feel like home and more friendly faces to say 'hi' to."

THE GREENWOOD ROAD HOME of Ken and Joanadell Hurst was destroyed by fire early Friday morning. The Hursts are Valley old timers. Ken Hurst is a frequent contributor and a long time friend of the ava. Neither Ken nor Joanadel were injured in the blaze, which also destroyed outbuildings. We haven’t been able to reach the Hursts, but they’ve got to know their many friends in the Anderson Valley are standing by to provide whatever help they may need.

YOUR COMMUNITY HOLIDAY DINNER is about to be served. Call Rainbow, 895-3807 or email captnrainbow@pacific.net to volunteer and make this a smooth and pleasant community dinner. Announcing the 2018 Annual Holiday Community Potluck Dinner sponsored by the AV Grange and AV Foodshed. Sunday, December 9, 5:30pm. At the AV Grange Hall.

BOONVILLE’S CASSIDY HOLLINGER has been very sick and needs the support of her home community. Cassidy writes: “As many of you know - especially if you followed my social media meme journey - this past spring I entered Kings County Hospital for what I thought was a minor infection...and boy was I in for a treat. Here's the tea: we found a congenital defect in my right kidney harboring a staph infection, requiring an emergency surgery that night and a 4-day stint in the ICU (105.7 degree fever is FEELIN' HOT HOT HOT). That's when we found the good stuff: a fatal heart infection (endocarditis, just like on "House"!) requiring six weeks of daily IV treatments. I spent 44 days in that palace, and returned for a total kidney reconstruction a few days later. I have since had another surgery, and will have to continue to have follow-ups for the next year/the rest of my life.

As you might imagine, this is not cheap, and IT'S TIME: the bills unfortunately are coming due. I'm raising funds to cover the medical bills and the regular bills that incurred while I was stuck in there (ain't no party like a Brooklyn-rent party cuz a Brooklyn-rent party don't stop). I know everyone says this, but every little bit helps, especially if you can share this on social media with your friends. And there will be prizes (TBA) - including but not limited to: a narrated slideshow of hospital memes, me cooking for you (I'm good!), and even stand-up performance(s)! Love to you all, and thank you in advance!

https://www.gofundme.com/cassidy-hollinger-kidney-warrior”

A MOUNTAIN LION has been spotted, and heard, in the area of the Philo Grange, reminding us all that as soon as we’re off the pavement in the Anderson Valley, it’s still a wild, wild place.

ANDERSON VALLEY’S Future Farmers of America, spearheaded by the 8th grade FFA members, are starting 2 community service projects. Both begin now and end on Dec 14th. The first project is called $5 for Life. They are seeking donations of $5 or more from community members. The donations will be used to purchase gift cards for victims of the #CampFire. The FFA members will be putting containers around the valley for donations. You may also bring monetary donations to the high school. You may purchase gift cards and donate those. We want to make sure fire victims receive the donations before Christmas. Our FFA chapter is working with the California FFA on this project. The second project is a Canned Food Drive for the Food Bank. The members plan to put collection boxes at various locations around the valley. They are hoping you will donate non-perishable food and/or pairs of new warm socks. If you have questions you may message me, Beth Swehla, or call my classroom at 895-2514.

Thank you for continuing to support the AVHS Agriculture Program and students. The FFA members look forward to helping our community.

TAKE a shorthanded rural ambulance service and add Tom Melcher, a guy truly deserving of an Above and Beyond award, not that any of Anderson Valley's ambulance volunteers are any less deserving.

HERE'S THE STORY: Antoinette von Grone and Thom Elkjer, the seemingly indefatigable husband and wife team who are on-call for days at a time, took a rare break from their grinding ambulance duties for some rare time off, leaving town for three weeks. Melcher, a former resident of Navarro and a fully certified emergency services provider with the perennially short-handed Anderson Valley Ambulance, flew back to The Valley from his new home in Vermont to fill in for Antoinette and Thom while they were away, staying in their Boonville home while he made himself available round-the-clock to respond to the usual variety of local disasters.

MELCHER covered 18 shifts over the three weeks, keeping the ambulance in full response mode when it would otherwise have been mostly out of service. Fortunately, there were not many calls and things worked out just fine. But it wouldn't have worked out well if it weren't for Melcher.

IT ALL GOES to show how difficult it is to recruit, train and keep EMTs and to keep our struggling ambulance service alive if a magnanimous dude has to fly clear across the country to respond to our emergencies.

AMBULANCE MANAGER Clay Eubank covers a lot of shifts himself, much as Dave Severn did not long ago, the whole of it being that Anderson Valley Ambulance needs people to step up to keep this invaluable life saving service fully alive — if not as an EMT, then as a driver.

WE'VE BEEN COMPLAINING about Glen Ricard's kindling pile at the south end of Boonville for many years, yowling on and on about how it was once home to six separate small businesses, including the fledgling Anderson Valley Health Center prior to its present incarnation as Taj Ma Medico. That once thriving little hive of mostly free enterprise at the corner of Haehl Street and 128 wound down and down and finally collapsed. Enter Ricard who, as I recall, bought the property from Fred Ottoboni. Ricard submitted a viable plan for a whole new structure with several apartments on a second floor, shop space below. And this is the part we didn't know, and I'm taking this opportunity to apologize to the old buzzard, er, Mendocino property investor. We didn't know that Planning and Building demanded that Ricard install an elevator to reach his proposed second floor! An elevator for a minor project in Boonville? How about an escalator for Philo? A helipad for the Navarro Store? A ski lift for Yorkville? And that was the end of Ricard's plans for a major improvement for SoBo, and the rambling, abandoned structure has lain a'mouldering ever since.

THE CONSENSUS opinion here at Boonville's beloved weekly about the proposed water and sewage project is that we think it all depends on how much these services are likely to cost individual property owners per month. Anything over $50 bucks for both is going to be a hard sell because monthly rates that climb much over that amount will be onerous for many of us.

REGINE BOUDOURES moved to Anderson Valley from Santa Rosa in 2010 to be closer to family and community. "I had talked to Colin [about joining the fire department] when I moved to Yorkville but with a young son it didn't seem possible. After Cyrus was born and he started having his seizures and where we were living was so isolated, I decided to take the EMT class. When we moved up on Greenwood I joined the Elk Fire Department and worked as an EMT there and it snowballed to AV. I just love it. It's something I never think twice about, I just really enjoy doing it."

MIKE MANNIX is a familiar face in Boonville, with family ties to AVFD (his uncle Homer Mannix was once the department Chief). He joined the Ambulance crew in 2014 after taking the EMT class in Boonville. He did it for the challenge, to connect with the community, and out of a sense of civic responsibility. When AVFD and AV Ambulance merged last year, he came on board as a water tender operator. He'd been an EMT and firefighter in Colorado in the early '90s, first training as a fire fighter. "Before, it was 'drive the red truck with the lights flashing.' Then I became an EMT and it was less fun but more serious, more satisfying. You get an immediate sense of being a helpful person."

WHY NOT DISNEYLAND? Georgeanne Croskey, our lame duck Third District Supervisor, recently received a warm and costly sendoff from county taxpayers in the form of an all-expenses paid trip to Washington DC, where she learned lots of important cool stuff about running local government operations. Ms. Croskey will be able to share all this with her new friends and neighbors in Dayton, Ohio, where she long ago notified the county she’d be heading when her term ended, which is now. Cost to citizens? A lot. Benefit to citizens? Zero, but who cares? 

— Tommy Wayne Kramer

NEGATIVE FEEDBACK re the introduction of a possible water and sewer system for Boonville meeting back on November 1 has our Community Services District board on its heels.

Board Chair Valerie Hanelt opened the water/sewer discussion at CSD’s regular Board meeting Wednesday night with, “We have the community's attention now!" — nevermind that the Board has been working on and publicizing their plans for several years now.

The bulk of the complaints seem to be focused on the proposed sewer system and assumptions of the odor that would come with it even though the engineers have tried to assure the locals that the processed effluent will not only be odor free, but covered by a tarp most of the time.

So, Hanelt said, they have started looking at different spray areas for processed effluent farther from downtown Boonville but perhaps closer to the south some distance from the intersection of Highways 128 and 253.

Several commenters complained that they were not personally notified of the water and sewer plans even though they have been covered at length in this newspaper, on the District’s website, on the posted meeting agendas, and discussed at length at several prior public meetings. Several trustees have also gone door-to-door to many of the houses in the proposed service area, discussing plans, talking about possible water sources, and doing water tests and surveys.

Trustee Francois Christian suggested that the district set up a "public information committee" to try to further inform people about the project, especially those outside the interior Boonville boundaries of the proposed sewer district who have somehow successfully avoided the years of previous outreach.

Clearly, the Board is not responsible for people who voluntarily and willingly don’t pay attention to local public affairs, then complain that they have not been notified. Nor is the CSD board responsible for erroneous information some locals get from equivalently misinformed friends, or that unending fountain of misinformation, social media.

Another sticking point for the proposed sewer system is that state funding for the sewer system comes with a condition that all parcels in the proposed service area be required to be hooked up to it. This is not the case with the drinking water system, which would allow parcel owners in the proposed service area opt out.

However, the fewer people hooked up, the higher the per parcel rates would be for operation and maintenance of the water infrastructure. (The district is actively pursuing a state grant funds to cover the system design and construction of both the water and sewer systems and has insisted several times that they would not proceed if estimated water and septic rates exceeded 2% of an average household’s annual income.)

For now, the District and the engineering outfit are preparing answers to the questions and comments submitted this month and will include them in the Draft Environmental Impact Report expected to be released for further comment in February.

* * *

In other Community Services District news, the board decided to send a letter to the Redwood Credit Union asking them to consider installing a full service ATM machine in Boonville. Trustee Francois Christian, a retired banker, said that although he completely agreed with the need for such a convenience in Anderson Valley, the likelihood that a bank or credit union would go to the trouble and cost of setting up and servicing such a facility is remote.

Fire Chief Andres Avila told the board that it looks like the County is going to abandon plans to set up their own Emergency Services Authority for cost reasons and revert back to the Sonoma County-based Coastal Valley EMS operation at — a somewhat higher cost. Accordingly, the long-delayed request for proposals for “exclusive” ambulance service in inland Mendocino County is again expected to be issued soon. "However, we've heard that several times before," added the Chief.

Chief Avila also told the board that he recommends the District officially adopt the State Fire Code, pointing out that recent legislation says that any fire department with a paid chief is now required to adopt the code and that it simply authorizes the district to enforce what they have already been doing voluntarily. Chief Avila and Administrative Assistant Angela Dewitt have been notifying local commercial establishments that they will be conducting courtesy inspections in the next few months, providing them with a checklist of the kinds of fire safety related items they will be looking at. The inspections are free courtesy inspections and no official action is expected unless someone refuses to correct a problem.

There was some brief and very informal discussion of using Caltrans "rest stop" funds to convert the grandstand bathroom at the Fairgrounds into a public restroom, particularly if the water and sewer system project goes forward. Convenient as that might be for many travelers, it’s pure speculation at this point.

For more information on the water or sewer project go to the District’s website: http://avcsd.org/watersewer.php

(Mark Scaramella)

RAIN FINALLY fell on the parched Anderson Valley over the past week with a welcome two inches or so falling on Boonville alone with more on the way the next few days as we go to press. It will take a true deluge to blast the Navarro River free at its mouth where the annual sandbar stands guard at the Pacific. The battered and fish-free Navarro has never looked worse, the lethal combination of chemical runoff and lack of rain combining to starve it of life.

KEN HURST stopped in Sunday. Ken and his wife Joanadel are being sheltered by a Valley samaritan while they try to put their lives back together after the loss of their home to fire on Friday, November 16th. “We lost everything, and I mean everything,” Ken said, “including our family histories.” He said the fire began about six in the morning on the deck of the two-story house overlooking the Navarro. “Nope, no visible cause.” Ken seemed not to want to say “suspicious” but the fire inspector asked him if he had any enemies. The affable old fullback and Army veteran replied, “None that I know of.” The Hursts are fully insured but there’s no compensation for a loss this large. Ken said he and Joanadel planned to re-build.

“PLEASE JOIN US in celebrating the final ArtWalk of 2018, hosted at Mulheren Insurance! This month we welcome one of the newest members of the local artist community, Elias Laughton. An abstract artist who works with experimental acrylic pouring techniques, Elias’ art is both intricate and fascinating... A passionate animal lover, Elias also donates 10% of all sales to the Anderson Valley Animal Rescue agency. Don’t miss out on your chance to see this exiting new artform up close and in person, as we say hello to Christmas and bid farewell to 2018!!!”

SWUNG in off the 101 corridor Sunday morning to have a cup of coffee in Geyserville, silently wondering why Boonville isn’t as, as, as… vivid, which may not be the word, but Geyserville welcomes the visitor at its south end with an intriguing array of sculptures, including a giant scrap metal horse. There are more businesses along  Geyserville’s main drag, buildings are nicely kept up and the little town seems generally more like the kind of place that takes some pride in its appearance. Pride of appearance, in Boonville, is purely the work of isolated individuals, not according to a community plan or even any expressed community desire. With all the money stashed away in the hills these days you’d think we’d at least have the equivalent of the Willits Arch or, better yet, a giant piece of art announcing, “You’re in Boonville, Ca, bub, and you won’t forget it.”

STEPHANIE KEPHART LAMB, daughter of Boonville’s Neil and Kathalene Kephart, has published a book for her friend Stephen Hurst, notice of which has appeared in Mr. Hurst’s local newspaper, The Daily Item, in Sunbury, PA, excerpts of which may also soon appear in Boonville’s weekly.

THE NUMERO UNO seed Anderson Valley boy’ s soccer team will finally get to play for the Division 3 championship — 20 days after their big win in the semi-final playoff game over 5 seed San Francisco Waldorf on penalty kicks (5-4). The combination of unhealthy air from the Butte County Fire, and Boonville’s default win over number 2 seed Jewish Community School because Jewish Community refused to play on the Sabbath, has pushed the championship match to Tuesday right here in Boomsville, 2pm at the high school. Rain predicted, but the game is on, rain or shine. (Results on line, print next week.)

THE NAMES of that great Boonville triumph elude me, but I remember a soccer playoff game on a rainy day at the high school field when a Boonville kid made an impossible curving goal from the very corner of the muddy pitch that won us the championship. Maybe someone with a better memory can fill us in.

IN OTHER SPORTS NEWS, this year’s edition of the basketball Panthers has gotten off to a traumatic start with a loss to Rio Lindo Academy out of Healdsburg, 76-14. The visiting Adventists jumped out to a 30-2 first quarter advantage in that one. Next up was Upper Lake, score not reported, and Monday night the Panthers hosted a quintet out of Rohnert Park called the Technology Titans. Hang in there, Panthers.

KIRK WILDER AND JUSTIN LAQUA are responsible for the wood chips beneath the swing and climbing structures at our Community Park next door to the Anderson Valley Health Center.

MARY O’BRIEN reminds us that “next Saturday December 1st from 10am to 4pm Elk is the place to be. Join us for The Greenwood Community Church’s annual Arts and Crafts Fair at the Community Center. There will be beautiful hand crafted gifts and yummy holiday treats for you and everyone on your list. Lunch will be available so make a day of it.  For information call 248-917-3369”

THE "OLIO NUOVO ” or "New Oil" from the 2018 olive harvest at the Yorkville Olive Ranch is now available in 375 ml bottles. The Tuscan olives were harvested on November 3rd. 4th, and 5th and milled each day using the stone wheels at the Olivino mill in Hopland, and bottled on the 8th of November. It is unfiltered, pale green and hazy in color and translucency. Although olive oil enthusiasts in Italy and Spain gather at the olive mills early in the harvest season to get their first tastes of that year's "Olio Nuovo", the vivid, brilliant flavor and pungency may be too much for the typical American pallet. "Olio Nuovo" may be an acquired taste yet to be acquired. So if that astringent, bitter taste at the beginning and the robust, peppery finish of a decanted Tuscan olive oil is pushing your taste buds too far, the "New Oil' will probably be too much. But the taste of olives will be bright and fresh, sparkling and alive! The "Olio Nuovo" is not labeled as Extra Virgin as the lab tests are not complete, nor has the California Olive Oil Council's Tasters Panel certified it as being "Extra Virgin". The "Olio Nuovo" will only be available at the Yorkville Olive Ranch House at $ 20.00 for a 375 ml bottle until December 23rd. Call 894-0530 to reserve a bottle and arrange a time for picking up the oil.

LOCAL HANDMADE GIFTS FROM PETIT TETON FARM. Do your gifting with unique locally grown and made products. At Petit Teton Farm we grow the fruits and vegetables that go into our hand-made jams, relishes, pickles and drink mixers. We're happy to ship anywhere in the United States and will even gift wrap. Contact us, Nikki and Steve, at farmer@petitteton.com, 707.684.4146, or stop by the farm at 18601 Hwy 128 any day between 8:30-4:30 except Sunday, noon to 4:30.

PETITE TETON’S OCTOBER NEWSLETTER

Some interesting observations we've made on our piece of land this year — and the resulting questions. We have no good answers. Although we continue to do what we understand to be "the right things" in relation to the earth and its inhabitants, we are not feeling at all hopeful. Is the toxic air we've been breathing for weeks causing our depression? Or the toxic politics? Or our sadness at watching a beautiful world be desecrated in not so slow motion by a toxic animal...by US?  For the first time in our 13 years of raising chickens, a hawk has killed two in two days, beheading and partially eating them in the field because they are too heavy for it to carry off. Is a hawk killing our chickens because there are no mice? In the previous 14 years, large numbers of mice lived everywhere...in our truck, garage, house, barn, compost, fields...and fed everyone...the snakes, hawks, coyotes, cats, dogs, chickens. Where are the mice? Compared to the past 14 years living here we've seen very few of our snakes...the gopher, king, rattler, red racer, garter. Because the mice are gone? Or is it the drought? Or the smoke? A week ago the still green leaves on many of our trees froze before changing into their fall colors, then dropped all at once. Did this happen because the frost was accentuated by the smoke in the air which kept the sun from warming the earth during the day? Are the nearby fires much more vicious because we've tortured the earth? Or because there are way too many of us? Or because the forest under story hasn't been well thinned or the trees eliminated? How can we keep our animals from breathing the toxic air when they live outdoors and we live in a small house? Why and how is the air in the house any better than that outdoors? Why can't we keep an increasingly toxic world on the other side of our fence line? When are we going to wake up? Or are we all going to wake up dead? We're sorry to sound so down, especially during a holiday season, but we are realists and our reality is based on science and observation. We always live optimistically, however, and hope better days are ahead. Take care and have wonderful holidays. (Nikki Auschnitt & Steve Krieg)

AV HIGH SCHOOL AG DEPARTMENT IS READY to take your Christmas wreath orders. Please fill out this Goggle form to place your order. Wreaths and arrangements may be picked up starting Nov 30th through Dec 12th. Last day to order is Dec 8th.

BURN PERMITS. AVFD will start issuing our local burn permits starting Monday at the Boonville firehouse. Now is the time to start getting ready for next fire season!

YORKVILLE RANCH HAD A GREAT TURN OUT last weekend for a fire-ready neighborhood meeting, talking about clearing ladder fuels along road ways and around homes, putting up reflective address signage, clearing temporary refuge areas, and maintaining alternative egress routes. It's ambitious but necessary, and many Yorkville Ranch residents are sharing the workload. If your neighborhood is interested in working to become more fire resilient, AVFD is a good local resource. Contact us at 707 895-2020.

THE 2019 Boonville Fire Department calendar is now available, announces Antoinette Von Grone, "a cooperation between Tina Walter and me, only $12, all of the profits go directly to the Fire Department. We printed 75, so there is only a limited supply. You can go directly to the Boonville Fire Station Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays between 10:30am and 4pm. The calendar will also be available at Mosswood Market/Restaurant when my ambulance photo show goes up on December 1st.”

IT BREACHED, Marshall Newman tells us: The river gage suggests the sandbar at the mouth of the Navarro River breached early Saturday morning about 2am. A sudden 1.5+ feet drop in level while it is raining is a bit unusual. 

ANDERSON VALLEY LAND TRUST vs C.T. Rowe is in Judge Nadel's court on Monday, December 17th. We hope to provide full coverage, and state right here our bias is for C.T.

WHEN POSTMISTRESS COLLETTE called late Monday afternoon we feared bad news. Well, some version of bad news anyway. Government, even the Post Office seldom brings good news, does it? Sure 'nuff. Our Postmistress said the Post Office would be closed Wednesday. "Why?" I asked, genuinely puzzled. "Somebody died," Collette replied. "No!" I exclaimed. "It can't be! Bush? For this guy our paper will be a day late? What's next, mandatory mass mournings with jail terms for not showing up?

A LOCAL WONDERS: “Who lives on Mountain View or owns property bordering Mountain View and is interested in helping build single track from Downtown to Faulkner Park? I think it would be super cool to have a walking/biking/hiking trail that could serve as a pedestrian path for residents off MVR to get to town without a car and others who want a nice trail for multi-purpose use. If you’re keen on something like this please reach out! Thanks and happy holidays.”

EARLY RISERS Monday fell to their knees in awe and gratitude at the splendor of the sun’s rise. These rare occasions are less rare at this time of year as Old King Sol announces himself in a scattering of rain clouds he turns to waves of golden grays as he makes his glorious way to the heavens. Sheriff Allman posted a photo of this morning’s wondrous sunrise, and name another lawman who casts his eyes to the heavens as his first act of the new day?

THE FUTURE OF THE NAVARRO River Watershed: Stream Flows and Water Security Strategies for Farms, People and Fish, Thursday December 6^th--To safeguard the health and well-being of the Navarro River watershed now and into the future, the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District is stepping up its efforts working with the community to implement projects and strategies to improve water supply security that also benefit the health of our rivers and fish.  To turn the tide of increasing vulnerability and diminishing stream flows, we are enlisting the help of landowners, farmers and vineyards and leveraging partnerships with the Nature Conservancy (TNC), Trout Unlimited (TU), Natural Resources Conservation Service, University of California Cooperative Extension and Shippensburg University. But success will depend on broad support and active participation of the Navarro watershed community.  This Thursday, December 6^th, the partners mentioned above will be kicking-off with a public meeting to share useful information and water management strategies and to encourage local participation.  The meeting will be held at the Anderson Valley Grange from 6-9 pm., beginning with a potluck supper from 6-7, and then presentations will start promptly at 7:00 pm.

VISIT WATER STORAGE and reliability projects for farms, people and fish this Friday, December 7^th: The day after the community meeting, on Friday Dec. 7^th, from 9am-12:30pm, the Navarro watershed community is invited to tour some recent water storage and water conservation projects in the lower watershed. We’ll meet at Anderson Valley Grange in Philo, tour begins at 9:00am—please carpool! The tour will happen, rain or shine! Both events are hosted by the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and Shippensburg University—through funding provided by the Wildlife Conservation Board and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. 

For more information you can email or phone Linda.macelwee@mcrcd.org, (707)895-3230; patty.madigan@mcrcd.org, (707) 462-3664 ext. 102; or go to www.mcrcd.org.

ANDERSON VALLEY 2018 DIVISION 3 SOCCER CHAMPS! In a hard-fought game played on a drenched Tom Smith Memorial Field, #1 seed Anderson Valley converted two penalty kicks (Juan Reynosa & Alex Tovar) to earn the Division 3 Boys Championship Tuesday afternoon in Boonville. Miraculously, it didn’t rain. #2 seed Jewish Community played the Panthers to a 0-0 stalemate in the first half and took a quick 1-0 lead early in the second half thanks to a header by junior Ethan Finestone. A handball in the box gave Juan Reynosa his opportunity at a penalty shot - and he blasted one home past JCHS goalie Johnny Felder to tie the game 1-1. Later in the second half - a half we might add that seemed to go awfully quick - a trip from behind in the box saw Alex Tovar get his chance at a penalty shot - and he quickly found the back of the net to nail what turned out to be the game winning goal. Anderson Valley is no stranger to the winner’s circle - they won Division 3 Championships in: 2012 2013 2014 2015 and now 2018. They were runner up to Roseland College last year. 

— MendocinoSportsPlus reporting

THE REDWOOD CLASSIC basketball tournament, the Redwood Empire’s oldest tourney, came and went last weekend in Boonville. The Boonville boy's team was down by the baseball score of 8-1 after the first quarter against a comparably enfeebled, Tule Lake. A fan was overheard muttering, "I better leave. If I watch any more of this I'm going to cry." Final score: Tule Lake 56, Anderson Valley 28.

STUART HALL HIGH SCHOOL, a private Catholic School in San Francisco, which always does well in their Boonville appearances, easily ran the table at the 2018 Redwood Classic with high-scoring, one-sided victories over every team they played.  SH easily beat a decent high school team from the tiny town of Jackson (Amador County, northeast of Stockton  called “Argonaut,” 77-48 in the Saturday night finals, coasting to the Redwood Classic championship.

THE ANDERSON VALLEY VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS in conjunction with the AV Food Bank and the Unity Club are conducting their annual Toy Drive. Drop off your new, unwrapped toys (ages 0-12, about $10-$12 value) or a donation at: Yorkville Post Office, Lemons’ Philo Market, or the Boonville Fire Station. Toys will be picked up on December 15 and distributed at the Food Bank on December 17. For more info: 895-2017.

BIG BAND IN BOONVILLE @LAUREN’S

The Swingin’ Boonville Big Band will perform at Lauren’s Cafe in Boonville on Saturday December 8th from 9-11PM.

Tickets are $15.

This performance is a benefit for the Adult Education Department of the Anderson Valley Unified School District.

Lauren’s beer and wine bar open late.

Last dinner order 8PM, band begins promptly at 9.

HOLIDAY COMMUNITY DINNER AT THE GRANGE

Be sure to save the date for the Holiday Community Dinner at the Grange on Sunday, December 9th at 5:30 pm.  We need help putting on the feast.  To learn how you can help, please call Captain Rainbow at 895-3807 or email him at captnrainbow@pacific.net.

NOTE! The Annual Community Holiday Dinner at The Grange this coming Sunday, December 9th, starts at 5.30pm and goes until the turkey runs out. (Not 4-7pm as stated in the recently distributed AV Community Bulletin. My apologies for any inconvenience or confusion. — Steve Sparks.)

PHILO PEOPLE were amazed to see a cow flop-festooned and crushed car at Starr Automotive’s lot last Tuesday morning. The unfortunate driver had run into a full-sized ruminant wandering free on 128 near the Grange. The beast went down hard, somehow managing to spray both the exterior and interior of the enemy vehicle with raw-form fertilizer. The driver, Martin Tovar-Trujillo, 32 miraculously emerged odiferous but otherwise unscathed. The cow is presumed deceased. Starr Automotive’s Bob Mackey, a man who could and should write a book at what he's seen on Mendo's highways and biways, was poised to hose down the wreck before hauling it to scrap iron heaven in Ukiah.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Bodywork office open in Boxcar Boardwalk across from Redwood Drive-in. Take Boardwalk to the "end of the line." AbraKaDebra Bodywork is in the rear car, office #6. Text 707/357-3068 for appt. See website for details about her work.

LOOKING for a drywall guy, a guy with 30 years experience, a guy who does all facets so perfectly he's an artist of the craft? A guy who's a long-time resident of this area with whole neighborhoods of satisfied customers? Call Gary at 707 843-823

MAYBE one of you mystics out there can tell me the significance of the albino squirrel I saw early this morning in a ridgetop neighborhood above San Anselmo. Quite a startling sight, it was. I've occasionally seen black squirrels, assuming they're in their winter coats. But this one was a deep blonde, and mos def a one off animal.

AV FIRE’S 2019 CALENDAR!

Hi, all you Fire and Ambulance Supporters,

The 2019 calendar, a cooperation between Tina Walter and me, is up for sale, only $12, all of the profits go directly to the Fire Department. We printed 75, so there is only a limited supply. You can go directly to the Boonville Fire Station Tuesdays, Wed. and Fridays between 10:30am and 4pm. The calendar will also be available at Mosswood when my ambulance photo show goes up on Dec 1st.

UKIAH is going ahead with the installation of parking meters in its already economically staggering downtown area. The last time Ukiah installed meters citizens justly complained so long and loud the city removed them. So why bring them back to ding downtown shoppers to shop and $65 if shoppers don’t feed the meter in time? Given the preposterously huge salaries Ukiah pays its management one would think an occasionally sensible civic decision would emerge from city hall.

HMMM. Maybe if we bury our power lines trees wouldn't knock them down and start fires. PG&E, is "testing" an underground line along a half-mile of rural road near Monte Rio. The power monopoly says a mile of buried line will cost its exploited rate payers a million-five. Some of the more coherent, aesthetically sensitive Mendo communities — Elk and Hopland for two — have buried their power lines via an existing PG&E beautification program.

A FRIEND TOLD ME THIS STORY: "We went to Patrona for lunch. Patrona is that restaurant on the corner near the Court House in Ukiah. Unusually good food. My niece and I have been there once before. Almost no one there as it was Saturday after Thanksgiving. I noticed as we walked in a round, high table near the bar with a group of three 30-40 year old somethings and one old guy. He gave me a look when we walked by. I wondered what he was looking at. Now I know. It was my young niece. As we were getting up to leave, my niece went to the bar area, right next to that table, to get two dessert boxes. When she came back, she whispered, “Auntie. I feel creepy. A man came up to me at the bar and said, 'Oh getting seconds?' Then he said, 'You sure are a pretty girl.' She told me it felt really creepy the way he looked at her. And she seemed really disturbed. I was feeling really red hot mad. When I came out of the restaurant's bathroom, he was back at his table and I took a look. Dirty ol man? Yes sireee. I’ve been approached all my life by those kind. Not a bum on the street. Just one of those dirty old men lusting after teenage girls. I had a moment of wanting to go to his table and say, “Hello. Just wanted you to know that if you had touched my niece, you would not like what would happen.” But I didn’t. Just a passing urge. But when we were outside near the car there he was, outside looking our direction on his phone. He looked at us for a long time. It made me sick. He didn’t DO anything. But if my niece, age 13, felt “creepy” he gave he a dose of predator energy. This has never happened to her before. It was good actually because we had a long talk that night about what to do with leering, stalking or creepy guys. And I spoke to her father and said, “Time for her to have a phone.” That’s my little story. She’s exactly the kind of girl they go after; sweet, open, sexy little body and oh so innocent. That innocence has been changed."

THEIR MANY friends in the Anderson Valley are saddened at the news of Dave Papke’s passing. Dave and Helen Papke have been long-time residents at the Cheesecake collective on the Navarro near Philo.

GRANGE HOLIDAY DINNER 2018 — Thanks to the community for coming and participating in another well attended Holiday Dinner at our local Anderson Valley Solar Powered Grange 669. Thanks to the Grange and Food Shed Group for their generous contributions and for those who volunteered to decorate and serve our community Holiday Dinner on Sunday Dec. 9th. It's a wonderful Valley tradition full of conviviality, song and really great food in abundance. The holiday community dinner at the Grange is open to all. Long may it run! Become a friend of the Grange and keep up with community events at the Grange on our facebook page: Anderson Valley Grange#669. Join the Grange or Sign up and Become a 'friend' of the Grange. Call Babs to sign up. 895-2996 (Babs)

KATY TAJHA of Comptche: “The joys of living in the country...phone was out...ask hubby to go see if the line is OK to county road...he says go to the store and call in the outage...I do that...BUT AT&T's landline is our only phone...cell phones don't work here because there's not enough customers to build a cell tower...SO the computer voice at AT&T wants a second phone line to call and report on the problem...except we don't have one! Then the voice says the problem will be fixed by Dec 14th! Thanks a bunch...meanwhile hubby goes out with a chainsaw and cuts the skinny tree down that is leaning on the utility wire...Fixed? Kinda...we can get internet and call out but no one can call us...one ring and the call ends...anyone know how to get past AT&T computer and get to talk to a real human being? Thanks…” 

THE BOONVILLE General Knowledge and Trivia Quiz is at Lauren’s Restaurant for two more evenings in 2018 – December 13th and 27th. That’s this Thursday at 7pm. Bring friends, family, any somewhat informed folks that you know, and enjoy delicious food, fine wine, excellent beer, and fun banter. Steve Sparks, Quiz Master.

EYES ONLY, BOONVILLE: Laura Diamondstone posted this jewel:

Re: Full Service ATM for the valley. 

Redwood Credit Union is willing to provide one. 

We need to locate a rent-free space with the following requirements. Please comment with ideas and preferably with landowner contact info. 

Suitable site for an ATM needs to meet the below criteria:

• Provided approximately 50 square foot of space for the machine
• Has adequate power
• Has access to either wired internet services or 4g Cell Service
• Is safe and secure
• Is accessible to the public 
• Is in a serviceable area (cash delivery & ATM servicing)
• Is supported by the community (members)

BUT WHERE TO PUT IT? Fairgrounds? Redwood Drive-in? Boont Berry? AVA’s front porch? Hours of operation? Seems from here that RCU ought to pay something in the way of rent, given they'll turn a nice profit on it. Security shouldn’t be much of a challenge given the skills of Mendo criminals, but the machine would still have to be protected against vandals.

HULBERT'S XMAS TREES next door to the Yorkville Post Office will sell you a yuletide centerpiece at a reasonable price during regular office hours.

YES, TWO CRAB FEEDS are scheduled for the Anderson Valley. The Senior Center will throw the first on January 19th at the Fairgrounds, happy hour at 5:30, cracking 6:30. The Catholics are on for the middle of February, date and time to be confirmed.

WALKING PATHS for the Boonville area would be most welcome, although Anderson Valley Way, Lambert Lane all the way to the end, even Peachland for the more strenuously disposed are pretty much car-free. A path up and down Mountain View would definitely get your aerobics charged, but I have to agree with Jeff Pugh who says: “The problem with something like this is that it is highly unlikely you are going to get landowners onboard. I believe that a state highway is actually owned by the state which gives them some wiggle room. Mountain View road is a county right of way through privately owned property. Most landowners are scared of losing control of their property and liability issues. I think that you could go to the county and find out who owns those properties. Good luck.” 

BUT MOUNTAIN VIEW PATH ADVOCATE Jeff Malnick, undeterred, maintains, “Once we get agreement of who is in, then we can design where it will go, then we can build it. I think the first part is going to be the most difficult. That being said, I have 13 acres on MVR that border Faulkner part to the east. We have an access road that connects up with Faulkner and runs parallel with MVR. I'm more than happy to make that available for this effort.”

LAUREN KEATING of Lauren's Restaurant, does much good for the Anderson Valley community, insofar as it is a community in the old sense. Like much of America, forces greater than us mere citizens have left us stranded as a series of unrelated clusters of singles arrayed in what might be called affinity groups, some of us gathered around this or that shared pursuit. About all we have in common is our shared geography. Many of us are growing old in a place where we want to stay but, as we weaken and the wolves circle, we need help staying where we are. 

LAUREN is now also the prime mover of a local Village, a national movement wherein older people, for a small annual stipend that funds a coordinator, are put in regular contact with persons in similar circumstances to get the services and help they need to stay where they are instead of being shuffled off to full dependence in some strange, uncaring place. 

IN THE WORDS of Susan McWhinney-Morse, the founder of the neo-Village concept, "It's a grass-roots movement on the part of older people who do not want to be patronized, isolated, infantilized. That's what we felt was out there for us. And we felt quite competent in taking care of ourselves and staying in our own homes, which in 2000 was absolutely revolutionary."

LOCAL PERSONS interested in the Village meet the second Sunday of every month at 4pm, Lauren's Restaurant, Boonville.

THINKING about the people I know who live alone, and prefer to live alone, I could list twenty or so I know of who are Valley old timers but prefer what to most of us would seem like isolation. I keep track of a few I've known for many years, and I will encourage them to sign up for our local Village when it's underway if, for no other reason, than their own physical safety.

TWO SAD instances of local isolatos will always remain vivid to me, both of whom might have been helped by a Village. The first was an elderly woman whose home gradually became overrun with cats, a feline infestation several of us couldn’t help but note had overwhelmed her. I only knew her to say hello. At first when I occasionally saw her outside puttering around in her yard, she and her premises were orderly, but then a sort of slow motion deterioration set in. She became more and more reclusive, and I saw more and more cats. One morning I knocked on her door to see if she was ok. An alarming screech met me. "No! Go away" came from within. Accustomed to violent rejection I mentioned my experience to other neighbors. As it turned out, I wasn't the only person noticing that the old woman was no longer capable of caring for herself, and then, to my utter horror, and I think I was the only witness to the last act, a youngish couple soon showed up and forcibly removed my neighbor as she screamed at them to leave her alone. The geriatric clean-up crew weren’t relatives. They drove a County car. I didn't even want to think about Mendocino County's dispatch of the dependent elderly, but a grimmer fate is hard to imagine, and similar ones cross all our minds when we reach that certain age.

THE SECOND CASE was a man I'd known for a long time, a man lots of us knew, but an impossible man, impossible in his unrelenting unpleasantness, over which he spread a progressive political coat. No one, however, least of all the editor of the local paper, met his lofty standards, which weren't standards at all but random slogans unsupported by real knowledge which gave him an identity as a radical. In his Mitty-ish head anyway. But always unyielding and devoid of even pro forma social graces (which he denounced as bourgeoise of course) the guy was to be avoided, avoided to the point where he apparently starved himself to death and lay undiscovered in his bed for at least two weeks before it occurred to anyone that he'd hadn't been seen for some time, and maybe someone should have a look-in.

WITH THE ANNOUNCED DEPARTURE of Jeffrey Parker, the invisible manager at KZYX reminiscent in his phantom-like movements of Major-Major in Catch-22, Parker's in when he's out, out when he's in, there’s an opportunity to save the club-like radio station a few bucks by combining the gm's redundant position with the program manager's redundant position into one grand redundancy. Kidding aside, neither job is a full-time position, obviously, since the on-air line-up is virtually unchanged over thirty-plus years, so what's to manage and what's to program? Here we go, off for another of Mendocino County's patented "national searches for excellence" for a new manager… when whaddaya know, his excellency has been sitting right next to us all this time! KZYX has had what? Forty managers since its dubious founding by a transient hustler named Donovan? And an enemies list that goes back to the station's founder, and arguably the only legacy enemy's list in the County.

GIVEN the givens of the enterprise it's probably impossible to finally install a smart, personable, accessible human-type person in the top KZYX job, although the task is easy for the money at roughly 60 grand a year. And right there’s one-sixth of the annual $600,000 budget. 

I'VE ONLY HEARD ONE of KZYX's Back to the Land interviews conducted by Kate Magruder and Sarah Reith, and that was the one with David Raitt. I thought it was interesting and hope to hear more interviews with the back-to-the-landers. Raitt told some amusing stories about his early adventures on Greenfield Ranch and, in his way, is probably fairly typical of the city people who fled the urbs for the outback in the late 1960s - early 1970s, in that he came from a well-to-do family. Most of the hippies I knew got regular cash support from their home fronts, and most of them reverted to conventional upper middleclass public jobs as lawyers, helping professionals and so on when the hippie interlude went out of fashion. But there was definitely a dark side to the counterculture. If I have one enduring memory of that time it was of a totally stoned young woman, so stoned she was unaware that her under-dressed child, a boy of about three she'd named 'Further,' was whimpering from the cold of the frigid winter air. I'll bet that kid grew up to become a hedge fund manager and a registered Republican. A lot of hippie children did a 180 from their, uh, scattered, parents.

SOCIAL NOTE: Last Friday night at the Albion River Inn, Kris Kristofferson was a dinner guest. Kristofferson owns property near Elk, and in recent years performed in Mendocino to a packed audience on behalf of the continued funding of local and state parks. Readers might recall that the state official in charge of funding for parks said the state was out of money to fund them, but shortly after Kristofferson’s charity performance, the state money miraculously showed up after the state official in charge confessed it wasn’t really missing in the first place. Naturally, in accord with public employment’s can-do-no-harm rules, she was replaced without censure and put into another job.

MONDAY (DEC 3) AFTERNOON'S power outage caused techno chaos at the mighty ava although it lasted only an hour. Without sharing the tedious details, we had to short our on-line edition, and all-in-all another reminder how dependent we are on an ever more centralized technology most of us don't understand beyond enough basic computer moves to keep us dependent on it.

EVEN MORE DISRUPTIVE, to us anyway, was last Wednesday’s decree that the Post Office close to mourn the passing of Bush the First. That shutdown cost our outbound newspapers a whole day before Jan The Mail Lady could get them to Cloverdale and hence to Oakland where the Mendo papers are put on trucks and planes for distant subscribers in an array of improbable destinations. When we’re delayed a day leaving Boonville, our more distant subscribers tend to be delayed at least a week in getting their papers. 

A READER NOTED last week: "Wednesday, tomorrow, all Post Offices in the US will be closed in honor of George W.H. Bush's death, an occurrence that has not been observed for any other past president that I am aware of." And an unwelcome one, in my opinion. 

PAUSED at Anderson Valley Market to deliver papers, I watched as two people in as many minutes tried the locked door at the Boonville Post Office. Ditto for the Philo Post Office. I'm sure if I'd staked out one or the other all day a steady stream of citizens would have been similarly frustrated. If it’s any consolation, Humboldt County government shut down for the day at an estimated cost to itself of roughly a half-million dollars. I was surprised that Mendo County and all our schools stayed open. 

GEEZER TIP. The Duluth Trading Company is an on-line store that sells a range of useful stuff for men, including toe clippers for big, gnarly nails, roomy clothing including underwear, knives up to machetes, seductive gizmos of all kinds. I just got a pair of non-prescription reading glasses, magnitude 5. The store-bought jobs only magnify up to 2.5. The 5.0’s blow up small print like most of us wheezes need — big. I also bought a couple of knives that was a pure impulse buy. My wife hides the catalog from me, and every time I order something she says something like, "How old are you, anyway?" (A reader said he didn’t think Duluth was all that great “and everything’s imported.” Got a point there but finding the little stuff that isn’t imported isn’t easy.)

AV FIRE DEPARTMENT FIRST RESPONDER AWARDS FOR 2018 (as voted by the firefighters and EMTs themselves):

EMS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: JOSH MATHIAS. A new addition to the EMS Branch who is growing quickly and has put forth good effort, is committed to training and responding, and is “An up and coming” individual.

FIRE FIGHTER ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: EDDIE PARDINI. A new addition to the Fire Branch who is growing quickly and has put forth good effort, is committed to training and responding, and is “an up and coming” individual.

DRIVER OF THE YEAR: WAYNE HOWARD. A steady hand, reliable for shift coverage, drives safely and smoothly, and assists the EMT proficiently as needed (can get EMTs over the hill without throwing them out or getting them sick.)

ENGINEER OF THE YEAR: FRED EHNOW. A water tender or engine operator that drives safely, consistently responds their apparatus, takes pride in their engine through maintenance and training, and is proficient with their apparatus and pumping operations.

OFFICER OF THE YEAR: OLIE ERICKSON AND ANGELA DEWITT. An officer that shows leadership with the crew, ownership of their station and apparatus, is committed to training, listens and communicates with their crews, and adds a proactive energy to AVFD.

EMS LEADER OF THE YEAR: AARON MARTIN. An EMS individual who is committed to the success of our medical branch capabilities and crew through training, response, committees, outreach and equipment checks. One who is steady on scene and promotes growth of the entire team.

EMT OF THE YEAR: ANTOINETTE VON GRONE. This award is for the individual who has exhibited exemplary dedication to the EMS within Anderson Valley through personal commitment, talent, and emergency response. This is the Highest of all AVFD EMS awards!

FIRE FIREFIGHTER OF THE YEAR: OLIE ERICKSON. This award is for the individual who has exhibited exemplary dedication to fire and emergency response within Anderson Valley through personal commitment, talent, and emergency response. This is the Highest of all AVFD Fire awards!

* * *

ANGUS LOOP, AVFD'S NEW FLEET MECHANIC, is also a relatively new resident to the Yorkville community. He moved here about two years ago from the Rockpile Ranch in the Cloverdale area and is retired from a career of maintenance and repair on law enforcement and fire service equipment in the East Bay. He comes to us with a significant background and knowledge of emergency equipment and mechanics. We are hoping that he will be able to serve Anderson Valley with quality maintenance, on call repair and fleet inspections for years to come. Just like the rest of our crew, he joins our team of locals serving our community with the skills that they can contribute.

(AV Fire Chief Andres Avila)

FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE, a video of the lively water-sewer meeting convened recently in Boonville is now available on YouTube. According to the Anderson Valley Community Services District, the posting of the video was quite a challenge to upload, which created the delay in posting it.  The film is divided into two parts:

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS are merrily blinking out against winter’s glomming everywhere in the Anderson Valley. So far, I’d say Boont Berry Farm’s display is the most spectacular, modest though it is.

WORD OF MOUTH is a nicely produced quarterly by Holly Madrigal of Willits and Torrey Douglas of Boonville that celebrates all aspects of Mendocino County’s food, from eating out to farm production. Issue 10 is available free at many food and drink venues around the county. I picked up mine at Boont Berry Farm, and found much of interest in it, from a feature story on Schat’s Bakery to Dick’s Place, “Mendocino’s Oldest Watering Place.”

IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR A HOLIDAY GIFT, the Yorkville Market has a wide selection of local handmade products, one item of which I bought for its uniqueness for a family member. I’m probably not alone in doing all my Christmas shopping right here in Boonville, Mendocino County’s most happening community.

THE JURY COMMISSIONER – and it’s hard to believe most AVA readers have not already met her, professionally, shall we say, having been summoned to jury duty, you report directly to her — is Kim Walker. And while she’s new – only a year or so, if I’m not mistaken, on the job –she’s so adroit at it in such a short time, and you can hardly grasp the scope of what she has to do to entertain – there’s no other word for it -- huge crowds of disgruntled voters, summoned out of their private lives to do “the public good” they grumble, grumble, grumble, “for some damn fool knucklehead that needs to get a life.”  I say entertaining is what Ms. Walker does because any other approach to such recalcitrant audiences could lead to revolt, riot and mutiny. She must have obtained her training at Lucifer’s Own Complaint Department, because she answers the most poisonous insinuations with the sweetest anecdotes, neutralizes acidic remarks with polished manners, and far from having an I’ve-heard-it-all attitude, she listens carefully as each would-be truant finds fault with the system, blames her either openly or privately for the inconvenience, and recites a novel need to be excused – then Ms. Walker snaps her lion tamer’s whip and sits all the big snarling cats up to wait, with a promise they can tell it to the judge, all in good time.  In the meantime (sometimes as long as a few days) Ms. Walker has to keep them entertained:  And so ladies and gentlemen of the jury pool, we hereby present Ms. Walker with this full-bust Lion Trophy, an alpha male specimen, just back from the taxidermist, suitable for display on a styrofoam pedestal in the foyer of this remarkable woman’s office. (Bruce McEwen)

DRIVING SOUTH last Thursday afternoon, the usual vehicular mosh pit commenced just south of Healdsburg, and was totally moshed by Windsor in full stop and go mode. The radio said there had been an accident near Petaluma at ten that morning. It was now 1pm and traffic was still slowed to stop and start all the way to San Rafael. A country with all the techno wizardry we are said to have. but we're still only a couple of wrecks away from total gridlock, not to mention the plethora of all the other unaddressed, rolling catastrophes becoming more dire by the day.

BANKS AND CREDIT UNIONS claim that ATMs increase "customer convenience," but in reality they cut costs for banks. By placing ATM's all over the place, especially in tourist-oriented gastro-ghettos like the neo-Healdsburgian Anderson Valley, ATM networks help banks reduce human employees by replacing them with technology. Because almost all their traditional bank services can be done by these machines, banks view ATM's as both a cost cutter and a way to expand themselves via their ATM customers who are charged mightily for each transaction. Viewed as an amenity for tourists,  a selling point negated by the fact that most tourists arrive armed with credit cards, ATM's are fast being made obsolete by cell phone tech. Most of us, I daresay, can do just fine without them. 

HARVEY READING DISAGREES: “I have used ATMs since the early 80s when I got my first one, and I like them. I hardly ever go inside the bank. I always hated bank teller lines. And I have NEVER been charged a fee for any ATM transaction that I have made.

The assertion that banks save money with ATMs is probably true. So what? I save time and gain convenience with them, counter to the argument made in the short piece.

As to the assertion that ATMs serve only a few, I disagree. Where I live, the ATM at my bank is used constantly. Not everyone has a smart phone, and, just how does one make a deposit with a radiotelephonecameracomputer anyway?

My only real complaint (other than difficulty seeing the LCD screen in bright light) with the ATM at the local bank branch is that it is a drive-up affair, and the device sits at monster-truck height. If I drive up in my old Probe, I have to park just short of the device, get out, and make my transaction while standing, which isn’t a that much of a problem for me.

The last time I entered the local branch of the bank I use was a couple of months ago to get a document notarized. There were no lines of customers awaiting tellers, none at all.

ATMs have been, and are, great for me.”

ON THE KZYX NEWS the other morning I heard a promo from, I think, a branch of the County's privatized psych services offering, among presumably more crucial services, "gender affirmation." If you’re in doubt, call Health and Human Services for an appointment, but to spare yourself a trip to Ukiah you can probably find a local person who will do it for no charge.

A READER WRITES: “A few months ago friends told me I should have a mole on my face looked at it because they knew of cases where moles became cancerous. My brother had had a few moles removed years ago because a dermatologist told him they were ‘precancerous.’ I didn't pay much attention to the friendly advice about my mole until the area around the mole seemed to itch or tingle a little. The mole itself seemed painless and benign. Then I made the mistake of going on the Internet to look up various symptoms related to moles and cancer. Malignant melanoma. Metastatic skin cancer. Brain tumors. Prognoses. Symptoms. Headaches. Dermatologists. Oncologists. Carcinoma. Biopsies. Surgery. Radiation. Chemotherapy. By the time I finished my 'research' both from conventional medical websites and chat-style forums specializing in terrifying anecdotes, I had myself convinced that I might be a dead man walking. So I made an appointment to see a dermatologist in Ukiah. They have a walk-in clinic for one hour one day a week which takes hours of waiting to get into. Lots of pre-visit paperwork. Many signatures on multiple forms saying I promise to pay for whatever testing and treatment is required. Page after page of checking the "no" box on lists of medical conditions which I don't seem to be experiencing. Interview with receptionist. Interview with nurse. Pulse. Temperature. Height. Weight. More waiting. Finally into the doctor's office. More waiting. Doctor enters, introduces himself. Minimal chitchat. Pulls out magnifying glass. After less than a minute of skin inspection: "You're fine. Nothing’s wrong.” It’s a “seborrheic keratosis,” aka “age spot.” Offers a piece of paper describing what I could do for cosmetic purposes, but there is no medical problem. “You can go." No biopsies. No tests. No appointments. No big medical bills. Nothing to do now but wait until another friend points out another problem.”  

HIGHWAY 128 has already been closed this year for 10 hours due to "sandbar flooding." That was on November 30th 7:30 pm - December 1st 5:30 am. According to Paul McCarthy of the essential Mendo Sports Plus, who monitors the Navarro on a daily, nay hourly basis, the sandbar has been breached more than not and "there is NO threat of Highway 128 flooding - a Christmas present from Mother Nature."

NEW YEAR’S EVE & Taunia Green’s Going Away Party: Lauren’s Café in Boonville. Starts at 9pm. The popular local's send off will be accompanied by an as yet unidentified Rock’n’Roll band and local favorite the Joe Blow Band, all of it shaping up as a memorable twofer.

WE ALL remember Lee and Mike Montana of Rancho Navarro, and still wish they were with us instead of their new home in Los Lunas, New Mexico: Lee writes: “Hello Anderson Valley! It has been more than two and a half years since we have seen the beauty of your home and we sure do miss it. We wish everyone there a Happy Christmas (which I hope you had by the time you read this) and a very good 2019. Love and miss you, Anderson Valley. Sincerely, The Montanas.”

THE KELLY HOUSE MUSEUM is offering locals free guided walking tours of historic Mendocino this holiday season. It's our gift to the community for all the support the Kelley House receives during the year. Each day from Saturday, December 22, through Tuesday, January 1, guided tours begin at 11AM. Join our expert docents for a stroll past early pioneer homes, historic meeting places and buildings that make up the National Historic District -- along with lively commentary! The tour is suitable for all ages and lasts about 90 minutes. The cost for visitors is $10 and proceeds support the non-profit Kelley House Museum. For more information, please visit: kelleyhousemuseum.org/walking-tours/

IT OCCURS to us that a candid walking tour of Boonville would be the vivid equal of Mendocino’s until it also occurred to us that local history, any local history truly told, especially if it includes more or less contemporary events, would likely end with blood in the streets.

A SMALL FARM IN BOONVILLE.... November: "The rain it raineth every day" and oh boy are we happy about it! The earth is greedily sucking it in; the creeks and drains just started running (not something we could guarantee with confidence in other years); the hills are greening so we no longer have to feed the yaks, but the steer calf still insists on his bottle; the chickens cover the fields pecking for worms and bugs, a mix of active colors beautiful against the greens and dark earth; and the two piglets now have a permanent wallow. The oak trees have gone black and white, exchanging their fluttering summer dresses for bare black arms covered with white lichen, Spanish moss swaying at the fingertips, their trunks in a thick cloak of emerald green moss and circular patches of lichen decorating the smaller trunks. Forcing oneself away from the fireplace to dress for animal feeding twice a day is a reluctant chore...hat, rain-pants, boots, raincoat and plenty of warm clothing beneath it all...but once outdoors the world is glorious - just be careful not to slip in the muck! We love the fog, the black skies, the scent of the clean earth, the wild and random wind - south right now - the gray palette from green to purple, and of course the rain pelting the windows once we've returned to the fire to doze, read, and take stock of the past year and plan for the coming one. What a difficult year it has been, not personally but certainly globally and politically, and how glad we are to see some hope of change coming. As always we wish you happy holidays and a much better new year. — Nikki and Steve, Petit Teton Farm

"OLIO NUOVO" or New Oil from the 2018 olive harvest at the Yorkville Olive Ranch is now available in 375 ml bottles. The Tuscan olives were harvested on November 3rd, 4th, and 5th and milled each day using the stone wheels at the Olivino mill in Hopland, and bottled on the 8th of November. It is unfiltered, pale green and hazy in color and translucency. Although olive oil enthusiasts in Italy and Spain gather at the olive mills early in the harvest season to get their first tastes of that year's "Olio Nuovo", the vivid, brilliant flavor and pungency may be too much for the typical American pallet." 

NOT FOR OUR crude pallets. Fortunate in the extreme to be gifted a bottle of New Olive, I'm here to tell you the avocado salad has never tasted better!

FREE DAY AT HENDY. On the Second Sunday of every month in 2019, the Hendy Woods Community is covering the Hendy Woods State Park’s Day Use fee ($8) for local residents from the following communities: Yorkville, Boonville, Philo, Navarro, Comptche and Elk - Know your zip code. Enjoy a free visit to the park on us and stroll the old growth redwood groves and beautiful meadows, hike the trails, and unwind along the river! Note: I was only able to set 6 dates for this event but it is a YEAR long event, i.e. every 2nd Sunday at least through 2019. Want to join our great team and support your wonderful park? We are always looking for motivated Volunteers to staff the Hendy Woods Visitor Center, remove invasive plant species and lead forest walks! Interested? Contact: Nancy - NancyLIppolito@gmail.com

MARKET (& FOOT) UPDATE by Anne Fashauer, North Country Real Estate, Boonville:

As it is close to the end of the year, I thought it was time to do a market update. To date, this calendar year, there have been a total of 25 sales in Anderson Valley. 15 of these were residential sales, eight were land and two were commercial/residential. Nine of the residential sales were under $500,000, one was between $500,000 and $600,000, four between $900,000 and $1,400,000 and one was over $3,000,000. Half of the land sales were under $200,000, the remainder between $200,000 and $600,000 (the last was for the largest piece of land). This is down from a total of 31 sales in 2017, with 18 residential and 13 land sales; prices were higher last year as well, with five of the residential sales under $500,000; six between $525,000 and $800,000 and seven between $900,000 and $1,800,000. Land sales last year were much better, with only one sale under $200,000, seven between $200,000 and $600,000 and four over $800,000. 

All of this information is based on sales reported in Bay Area Real Estate Information Services, Inc. (BAREIS) and is not verified and is subject to change. Listings represented may not have been listed or sold by Anne Fashauer/North Country Real Estate. I can say that 44% of those sales were either listed, sold or listed and sold by North Country Real Estate. We definitely noticed a decrease in land sales and prices with the legalization of cannabis in California. No longer were growers looking to purchase land out in the hills to hide their plants; long-time farmers were also getting out of the business and selling. 

Last October’s fires also caused a drop in our market activity. Interest rates have also increased, making it more difficult for some buyers to be able to qualify for a home loan. It will be interesting to see what the new year will bring. I have been reading articles in my down time, all predicting different things. It’s safe to say that whatever happens in the larger world will eventually get to us here, but that can take a long time. 

As for my foot, it’s healing nicely. I’m off of the crutches except for longer treks. I have a “shoe” that protects my foot and some stretches to do to regain movement in the affected area. It is still very tender but it is wonderful to be able to do things for myself again. I’m back to the office some as well but actually hiking on property is still a ways out.

TUESDAY 3PM. A youngish man is sitting in a forlorn pile dangerously close to Highway 128 at the Philo end of Anderson Valley Way. It’s raining. His back is turned to the traffic. He keeps trying to pull a woolen blanket over himself and his dog. I peg him as an obvious 5150 and pull out my old guy cell phone with great big numerals to call him in as a clear danger to himself and others. I seldom use the thing but family insists. “For emergencies,” they say. Best thing about it is it never rings. Anyway, the youngish man in a baseball cap sitting in a befuddled heap with his dog represents an emergency, to himself anyway, although he’s clearly past knowing that, I supposed. But then a minor miracle occurred, one of those random acts of kindness unkind people advertise on their car bumpers. I think of the wonderful phrase, “Virtue signaling.” But they do occur, as this one did. This random act of kindness came in the form of a portly, gray-haired man driving a dark green, older-model Chevy. If I’d performed my random act of kindness it would have consisted solely of calling Deputy Walker to get the guy and his dog out of the rain and out of the traffic. But this true Samaritan, a man named Leonard I later learned, lifted all the guy’s stuff into his car, opened the door to the passenger seat for the guy to climb in, and off they went. If Leonard did no more than scooped the sad tableau off the road he'd committed a true random act of kindness. Squared.

HOLIDAY QUIZ IN BOONVILLE THIS THURSDAY: Happy Holidays to One and All. THE Special Holiday Quiz at Lauren’s Restaurant in Boonville this week starts at 7pm on Thursday, 27th December. Hope to see you there. Cheers, Steve Sparks, Quiz Master

I WAS SURPRISED and not surprised to open the December 14th edition of the Independent Coast Observer (ICO) to read this super-large headline above a full page of explanations: "What if the ICO Went Away?" The essential sentence was, "But, due to circumstances beyond our control, our advertising revenue has diminished and we are in jeopardy of having to close down if we cannot find additional means of support." The letter concludes with a request for ten bucks a month to the "ICO Newsroom Heroes fund" to keep the South Coast weekly alive.

I WAS SURPRISED because the McLaughlins, of all the four owner-operated County papers, seemed impregnable. It has a large ad base and healthy weekly sales via South Coast newsstands and a solid base of subscribers. But I’m not surprised that the paper is in trouble. Very few papers aren't in trouble as we all try to cope with the neo-fact that we're dinosaurs, that newspaper-newspapers are over because the young 'uns get all their info electronically. The great Brit journalist, James Meek, calls newspaper-newspapers, "legacy papers" — meaning leftovers, most of which struggle to make their on-line editions paying propositions while their print editions lose tons of money.

THE ICO is asking its readers "to help by making a monthly, non-deductible donation of $10 or more," a true sign of desperation unlikely to elicit much in the way of real support, but I hope they somehow hang on.

FOUR of the County's papers — the Ukiah Daily Journal, the Willits News, the Advocate-Beacon (a two papers-in-one job) are owned by a hedge fund, meaning vultures owning a whole string of local newspapers descended from community-based owners, are being stripped of their assets prior to being raffled off or simply closed. Some bullet-headed kid, probably a Princeton math grad sitting in New York, will one day soon look up from his cocaine to check his newspaper algorithm and exclaim, "Kill 'em off. We already sold their office properties and their ad revenues aren't paying enough to pay their writers although the pathetic slobs are already on food stamps."

SAVVY CAPITALIST that I am, I set out on a kind of journalo-kamikazi run in January of '84, having been a resident of the County since 1970. What I had in mind was a paper unlikely to attract advertising which, of course, freed the mighty ava from whatever pressures my fellow free enterprisers might try to exert. Within a month, almost all of the advertisers I'd inherited had fled, one Ukiah hysteric sending me a telegram that arrived three days later from Ukiah at the Boonville Post Office. (Western Union maintained an office for years across the street from the Ukiah Daily Journal.) For the first year it was touch and go, but the paper was, ahem, interesting and lively enough to attract a healthy number of outside readers to keep us alive just short of what could be called "thriving."

NO STRANGER to hostility prior to owning a newspaper, it came in truckloads with the first editions. But now even the hostiles, though still hostile, don't take the time to write a denunciation any more. The creative vituperation I'd always looked forward to has also moved on-line. And we've moved to what might be called "hyper-local" and, of necessity, downsized to eight pages. (Print and mail costs go steadily up and up. Print is going up another two percent in January.) And printers have also downsized. Where our printers had three big web presses they kept busy, they have one that's half-busy.

I'D ASSUMED that to survive in the newspaper business I'd have to produce a paper heavily dependent on stand sales and subscribers, on readers who valued a lively weekly read. That worked pretty well until '97-98 when the internet really took hold, and Jobs and Zuckerberg revolutionized the way Americans got their information. And the newsstands and book stores, where we sold a lot of papers, began to close, and all the old newspaper readers, the people who refused to even buy a computer, began to die and are now legacy newspaper readers themselves. We limp along. The only direct peril faced by Boonville's beloved weekly is the age and creeping decrepitude of the paper's two primary producers.

HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. An old man calls his son and says, "Listen, your mother and I are getting divorced. Forty-five years of misery is enough." "Dad, what are you talking about?" the son screams. “We can't stand the sight of each other any longer,” he says. "I'm sick of her face, and I'm sick of talking about this, so call your sister and tell her," and he hangs up. Now, the son is worried. He calls his sister. She says, "Like hell they’re getting divorced!" She calls their father immediately. "You’re not getting divorced! Don't do another thing. The two of us are flying home tomorrow to talk about this. Until then, don't call a lawyer, don't file a paper. DO YOU HEAR ME?!” She hangs up the phone. The old man turns to his wife and says, "Okay, they’re both coming home for Christmas and paying their own airfares."

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

Anderson Valley Deaths in 2018

• Sharon Sullivan
• Jerry Cox
• Beryl Thomasson
• Ken Montgomery
• Christine Lopiccolo
• Paula Kesenheimer
• Nick Rossi
• Jason Abbott
• Willis Tucker
• Michael Hibbeln
• Carolyn Hibbeln
• David Falleri
• Charley Swehla
• Pat Hulbert
• James Triplett
• James Gimblett
• Donald Hammond
• Jeff Hansen
• Kent Rogers
• Ernie Blattner
• June Lemons
• Bonni Davi
• Brian Mendoza 
• Daniel Woolley
• Billy Mckenzie
• Nicole Sawaya
• Maurice Turner
• Carl Collard Sr.
• Mike Howell
• Guadalupe ‘Lupe’ Becerra
• David Papke
• Gloria Walter

WE NEED a gringo version of the Mexican Day of the Dead. The Mexicans set aside an annual day to remember those who are gone. Thinking back over the recent past, it’s not only the deaths of people over the past year who were central to the life of the Anderson Valley that we miss, many of us still miss people we knew from our first years here. I still miss Burl Evans, the CHP officer assigned to Boonville in the early 1970s, a wonderful guy. And John Slotte who filled out our first basketball team when we didn’t know anybody else in town. And Mel Baker, school superintendent when school administrators still came with vivid personalities, and Frances Lytle, school secretary, the glue that kept the whole school show running. Homer and Bea Mannix. Bill Mannix. Peggy Bates. Indian Ed. Harold Perry. Cleo and Buck Clark, and old lady Zanoni at the Navarro Store. The legendary deputy Squires, fortunately still with us and still a legend. Cecil Self. Ruben and Marie Thomasson. I could go on and on, but if we were Mexicans we’d gather some central place to remember all the people who made the Anderson Valley the special place it is, and if our culture were more coherent we’d do that.

A PAIR of sad incidents over the past week: the first a young man whose diminished capacity somehow resulted in his mother being carried by ambulance over the hill for medical treatment, but all of us were much relieved when Wanda Owens soon reappeared, and she and Bill were back on the job getting the Daily Journal delivered. And there was the total destruction by fire of Ms. Anyez’s barn at Nash Mill, her nearby home spared.

JARRED all the way awake Christmas morning by the Press Democrat's front page photo of Logo Tevaseu, the legendary Northcoast football player who graduated from Anderson Valley High School. The over-large booking photo was placed over the garbled story about Logo being found guilty of second degree murder for the drunk driving death of a young Sonoma State student named Paulette Quiba. Many of us in the Anderson Valley know Logo and are fond of him. We all hope he can somehow put this awful event behind him to resume the promising life he had enjoyed before November 5th, 2017. The tragedy occurred when Logo crossed a double-yellow line to pass vehicles on Lakeville Highway when his Dodge Ram pickup slammed head-on into a Toyota Corolla driven by the young woman, killing her and injuring five other people in the ensuing pile-up. Uninjured in the terrible collision, Logo was found by the CHP to have a 0.22 percent blood alcohol level, almost three times the legal limit of 0.08. And this was his second DUI. Logo will be sentenced in January to a maximum term of 15 years-to-life in state prison. We hope the judge will impose a much less severe penalty based on the totality of Logo Tevaseu's non-criminal life. It's clear to everyone who knows him that his remorse is deep and, given that he caused the death of a promising young woman, unending.

IF A TREE FALLS FROM THE FOREST....

Monday night around 11:30 pm, my son in law was on Highway 128 about 3 miles from Highway 1 when he turned a sharp curve and almost ran into a redwood tree fallen across the road. He turned back and took Flynn Creek, flashing his headlights to warn other cars speeding towards the tree. Any reports from others. We reported it. Thanks and Merry Christmas morning, to all and happy holidays to all as well.

— Ann Kyle Brown

Albion River Fire department volunteers responded to clear and make-safe. Thank you local heroes, for responding to this Mother-nature emergency in the middle of the night, 12/25/18.

— Kathy Wylie

AV FARMS & PRODUCTS!

• Blue Meadow Farm - at the base of Holmes Ranch Road - 895-2071
• Brock Farms - on Goodacre off the base of Peachland - 895-3407
• Velma's (Filigreen Farm) - on AV Way - 895-2111
• Gowan's Oak Tree - on Hwy 128 between Philo and Navarro - 895-3353
• Pennyroyal Creamery - on Hwy 128 in Boonville - 895-2410
• Petit Teton - on Hwy 128 between Boonville and Yorkville - 684-4146
• The Apple Farm - on Philo/Greenwood Road just before the bridge - 895-2333
• 4 Bar K Ranch (beef) - dkooyers@gmail.com, 895-2325
• Anderson Valley Community Farm CSA (variety of products) - andersonvalleycommunityfarm@gmail.com, (831) 332-5131
• Bramble Family Farm (olive oil) - sales@bramblefamilyfarms.net, 272-8487
• Bucket Ranch (variety of products) - 845-3851
• McEwen Family Farm (variety of products) - bebingmcewen@gmail.com - 472-9009
• Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company (seaweed) - kombuko@seaweed.net, 895-2996
• Natural Products of Boonville (mushrooms & more) - keepertrout@gmail.com, 684-0182
• Petit Teton (canned goods, pork, beef, squab & veggies) - farmer@petitteton.com, 684-4146
• Pomo Tierra Orchard (apple products) - bernie@mcn.org
• The Forest People - Radically Sustainable Mushroom Cultivation - 489-5034 
• Yorkville Olive Ranch (olive oil) - rhysolive@yahoo.com, 894-0530

ON BEHALF of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, Boonville, California, I accept this heartfelt tribute:

New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square will be dedicated to freedom of the press. Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, will have the honor of initiating the ceremonial ball drop at midnight on Monday, the Times Square Alliance revealed last week.

BOONVILLE, EYES ONLY: Friend of mine said he did all his Christmas shopping at the Boonville Mall, that's the Rail Yard mini-mall next door to Boont Berry Farm that seems to just keep going east. You can buy a bike or a piece of property on the way in, proceed to AD Jones' fascinating collection of jewelry and interesting stuff, then on to Mrs. Ballantine's bookstore, Torrey Douglas's graphics, Debra's massages. This is probably a stretch, but the Rail Yard is vaguely reminiscent of one of those floating Indo-Asian villages where every home seems to be a specialty shop, each of them intriguing in its way. But Boonville’s own mini-all has it all over Coddingtown.

JUDGE NADEL of the Mendo Superior Court is considering the odd case of the Anderson Valley Land Trust vs. CT Rowe of Peachland. Having read the Trust's complaints and CT's rebuttal, and being predisposed to CT's side of the dispute in the first place but trying mightily to put my bias aside, it seems clear that CT, and before him his mother, Briana, promptly met the Trust's claims that the Rowes were violating their agreement by getting into compliance. How this thing — essentially a beef between people who have known each other for years — got all the way into court is surprising, to me anyway. Check that: maybe it got all the way into court because the contending parties have known each other for years.

I REMEMBER BLOVIATING at the time the local Land Trust was formed that it was one more tax dodge for people fortunate enough to own tracts of Valley land, land heavily used for at least a century before the new gentry arrived with their lawyers, accountants, gentry-friendly tax laws and their smug assumption that it was all for preservation of the natural world as their pals in the wine industry simultaneously poisoned the land and erected signs claiming that their vineyards were "fish friendly" as the fish disappeared forever from the Navarro, not to mention the Valley's long gone frogs and much of its insect population. It remains unlikely that the less blessed will ever be invited to picnic on the "conservation easements" granted the gentry "in the public's interest," so it's no surprise here at Boonville's beloved weekly that the Trust would reach for the protection of the courts to run up an uppity member's legal bills. Hell, most of the judges, if not all of them, have their tidy little estates in land trusts.

IS HARD DOPE available in the bucolic Anderson Valley? Heroin no. Gotta go to Ukiah for that. Methamphetamine and the oxy drugs in pill form are expensive but can be had for a steep price. How do I know? Not being a consumer, I don't for sure, but I talk to people who do know and that's what they tell me. I also think that a lot of young people get sucked into harder drugs via the mythology that marijuana is harmlesss. Every single kid I've known, without exception, who started smoking dope as a young teenager wound up a mental cripple or straight up nuts as an adult. The only effective drug programs I've seen feature toothless addicts who plausibly warn the young, "Don't wind up like me." I also thought those scared straight programs that brought juvenile offenders face to face with prison lifers were effective, but objections from the candy ass lobby put an end to them on the grounds that the convicts were a little too real for the young. In Mendocino County, where dope is a way of life, and semi-legal with store front sales here and there, the confusion engendered in the young is understandable. 

NO FLOODING OF HWY. 128, SANDBAR OPEN as of late Monday afternoon. Sunday’s deluge dropped nearly three inches of badly needed rain on the Anderson Valley, also nicely flushing out the battered Navarro.

A NEW YEAR'S EVE TO EMULATE:

"It's that time of the year again and I'll be sitting in my broken camp chair at the corner of Redwood & Franklin Streets in Fort Bragg, starting at 11pm.  The New Year’s celebration in Fort Bragg's central business district is always fun to watch, with three bars within 200 feet of each other.  I don't drink alcohol (I do partake of cannabis) and don't go to bars, but want to be out around people when the New Year starts.  Being alone on New Year’s doesn't have to be a drag; last year, it was a fun mix of folks from all walks of life, a real positive community experience.  Everyone is friendly, if not a bit inebriated, stopping by to say hello and have a short chat, it's pretty darn cool.  Perhaps I'll see you there, and if you come, bring a chair and warm clothing.  Wishing everyone positive happenings in the coming year.  

Derek, Celebrating my 20th year as a resident of Fort Bragg."

HERE IN BOONVILLE there were two large gatherings, one at Lauren's for Taunia Green, the other the annual bash at Bert Cohen's, Bert as in Boont Berry Bert. My colleague, The Major, who holds down the night shift at the ava, said he heard several muffled explosions coming from SoBo (South Boonville), "which were either gunshots or cherry bombs." Used to sound like the Battle of the Somme on New Years back in the day, but we're a much tamer population any more. When I arose before dawn to greet the new year a celebrant was slumped in his car next door, his headlights on, radio playing. I lit out for a brisk walk along AV Way where I met the other two early risers and regular exercisers, Alicia Perez and Jan Wasson Smith. It occurred to me to that the ladies, devoted as they are to strenuous movement, might be interested in a Christmas gift I received called, "Walt Whitman's Guide to Manly Health & Training." The old boy was always male oriented, but I could blot out "Manly" to bring the advice up to date. Walt recommended lots of beef, walking, swimming, fresh air in the morning, an assault on a punching bag for an hour or so in the afternoon. As the great poet put it, "To you, clerk, literary man, sedentary person, man of fortune, idler... Up! The world (perhaps you now look upon it with pallid and disgusted eyes) is full of zest and beauty for you, if you approach it in the right spirit!" All in all, not bad advice, although the price of beef being what it is you might have to substitute another protein.

A HARD FREEZE overnight last week didn't unfreeze the water line to our office until 2pm. 

ON-LINE COMMENT RE THE PARADISE FIRE: "The many towns along highway 49 that have the same setup. All you have to do is drive through them. Twain Harte, Sonora, Placerville, Auburn, Grass Valley/Nevada City, some towns around Lake Tahoe, and others. People thinking about moving to these areas should do some research on the risk of living in a wildland with highly flammable trees and brush and grass and narrow roads. When I moved out of Redwood City, I thought for about five minutes about the Sierra foothills and Lake Tahoe (Nevada side) but then I saw the millions of dead and dying trees in the forests and remembered the Oakland hills fire which I watched from the west side of the bay. People need to look at where they want to live and it shouldn't be based just on price. I moved to an urban area because I wanted fire protection, access to health care. It's pretty to live among the trees in a forest, but there has to be a way out. Politicians can be blamed, but so can people building in these areas and not funding better infrastructure. Shouldn't have to tell them not to rebuild there... insurance companies should just not insure or set the rates high enough to cover the losses that they are now having to finance. Fires used to burn the forest but few people were there to lose their cabins or recreation homes. Now, hundreds of thousands live in these areas. Too many people."

JERRY PHILBRICK is right to point out that many areas of Mendocino County are not prepared for a fire storm, an event that was all but inconceivable until recently. The LA Times story analyzing the Paradise Fire makes it obvious that whole Mendo neighborhoods and subdivisions are smaller versions of Paradise, and even Paradise had a disaster plan in place, albeit inadequate to the unimaginable catastrophe that actually happened. Planners simply couldn't imagine the fire storm that destroyed Paradise, although there were people, as you can read in the LA Times piece, who tracked occasional summer winds of up to 200 miles an hour (!) roaring up out of the Feather River Canyon below Paradise, and the town had only one street outta there etc. and etc. Right here in Anderson Valley hundreds of people live in bone dry, heavily forested hills with one road out, and in some cases that one road could become quickly impassable with stalled vehicles, down trees and power lines. I'm a siren guy — five of those industrial typhoon warning sirens like many of the small towns in the Middle West and South maintain ought to be strategically placed from Yorkville to Navarro. Sirens would likely work a lot better than the reverse phone systems that failed so miserably in Paradise. Our Supervisors really ought to make emergency plans for the next big fire that kicks off here to keep casualties to a minimum. They've been talking for what seems like years about emergency exits from the Brooktrails subdivision northwest of Willits. Brooktrails, as presently constituted with one narrow road out, is one more local disaster waiting to happen.

COMMUNITY HOLIDAY DINNER. AV Foodshed and the Grange have continued the tradition of filling the entire Grange for the Community Holiday Dinner. The grange and the Woodshed share the cost of providing local turkeys, meat, potatoes, and gravy, and the rest of the feast is an incredible potluck. The excellent turkeys were from Sisters' Ridge Ranch in Redwood Valley -- local, but not as local as they could be. Boont Berry helped us get potatoes sourced from Northern California. For next year, we are hoping both the turkeys and the potatoes can be purchased from an Anderson Valley source. Please send an e-mail to avfoodshed@gmail.com if you are willing to raise 80 pounds worth of turkeys and/or 50 pounds of Anderson Valley-grown potatoes.

MEGA MILLIONS was worth about $450,000,000 this week when I invested my dollar, which I do every week regardless of the huge payout. It's a national lottery so even the minimum is huge. And a couple of times a month I get the lottery lecture. Boiled down, it's "Your odds of winning are the same as not playing." And "Don't you understand that gambling exploits the poor?" I do know that. Probably most people who plunk down their dollar twice a week know that, but we enjoy the Big Win fantasy, and I'm sure most of us are happy when a person who truly needs the money has magically selected the correct numbers. A few weeks ago, a young single mom working two jobs hit the jackpot. She said she thought she might buy a new car. She'd won something like 200 million. I'm happy for her and hope the wolves don't get her. Every week I think about what I'd do with Big Money. Apart from having a few people killed and laying in a supply of Planter's Mixed Nuts without the peanuts, I'd turn the AVA into a daily paper with headquarters at the refurbished Palace Hotel, Ukiah, a mammoth neon sign on the roof reading, "Who's Laughing Now?"

A READER sends along a clipping from a HumCo paper featuring the "Rev. Papa Bruce Anderson." A small photo of The Rev. depicts him as a portly, bald guy propping himself up with a cane who says he's a "Reiki Master/Teacher; a Holistic Health Practitioner; a State Certified Massage Therapist; a Umbanda Spiritualist, Orno Ogun; and Founder of the American Holistic Umbanda House." 

THE READER ASKS, "Is this you, Bruce?"

HAR DE HAR, dear reader, I forgive your impertinence. An obese old guy wouldn't seem to offer much in the way of "holistic health" advice given the visual he presents, but I doubt his "practice" is heavy on critical thinkers.

THE LATE RICHARD JOHNSON, aka The One True Green, used to publish something called "The Confluence Directory.” Printed in newspaper format, one issue appeared the same week Johnson was busted in Ukiah for riding his bike drunk. A brown rice, macrobiotic dude, he was another guy who never quite connected all his dots.

I used to marvel at the sheer number of quacks Johnson gulled into advertising in his Confluence Directory, but always admired his ability to get these charlatans to pay for expensive displays heralding their dubious services. There must be a couple of hundred non-scheduled "healers" in Mendocino County alone, population 90,000. How could their potential customer base be that large in such a small population? Maybe, I thought, it's like some kind of oracular musical chairs, with all of them taking turns re-birthing and tantric massaging each other. Then you read stats like 80 percent of Americans are down with astrology, 30 percent believing the moon landings were faked, Another thirty percent knowing in their bones that vaccination causes autism.

GREG KRAUSE WILL spare you this task: "Tired of getting wet and cold, trying to read and funky combination to open your gate and then getting out to close it. I can install, fix or install new motors on failed gate openers using dependable Liftmaster openers. I can install gates as well."

I'LL TAKE A CASE: A drinkable drug cocktail that shows promise for blocking Alzheimer's-related decline and even restoring memory has allegedly been discovered by researchers at Yale University. An estimated 44 million Americans suffer dementia or signs thereof, but those signs are purely in the biased eyes of the beholder. A lot of us oldies fake it. "Oh, well, you know he's old," they'll say as you get them to leave you alone rather than repeat a dumb question, or persuade them to carry something you're perfectly capable of carrying, blurt out insults, pull off little manipulations simply to get your way. By any truly objective standard most of us are Alzheimer's cases all our lives. Like, whatever, as the young people say, but the Yalies are claiming the magic ingredient is an old antibiotic called Suprax, or cefixime. This stuff apparently has elderly lab rats reciting the Greek alphabet backwards.

THE AV VILLAGE GROUP — “Empowering older adults to remain active, connected and independent in the place they call home while enhancing the quality of life in our community” — is launching their volunteer program with a meeting at Lauren’s Restaurant in downtown Boonville on Sunday, January 13, from 4-5:30pm. Local rides, pet-sitting, meal assistance, injuries-help, social outings, movies, seminars, advice on where to get help and more. All are welcome, from interested volunteers and organizers to recipients.

ANDREAS ALVARADO, the older man noted by many for his distinctive military gait as he passed through Boonville on his daily errands, suffered a bad fall over Thanksgiving, which became a pneumonia that has kept him hospitalized ever since. A gifted gardener, Andreas had lately worked for Lauren at Lauren’s Restaurant and in the gardens of Airport Estates. He is presently recuperating at the Lakeport post-acute facility.

SHOUT OUT to all my old friends in the Anderson Valley and Ukiah from Chris CJ Jones. I've moved from Eugene, Oregon to Portland, Oregon where I live in the downtown Portland area called the Pearl District. Chris Jones 2250 NW Thurman St. Apt B09, Portland OR 97210

STARRING THE REAL SARAHS!

In Boonville in June. The Real Sarahs will be there.

May 31-June 2 at the Boonville Fairgrounds. “An outstanding music and arts festival enjoyed in in a safe, family friendly environment, free of drugs and alcohol. Supporting a sobser lifestyle through performing arts, music, meditation, physical activity and embracing the outdoors.” Adult weekend pass $40. Kids: $20. $15 for single day passes. On site camping available for additional fee. For more information email csmusicfest@gmail.com or call 415/578-0125. Or write: Shakespeare at Stinson, PO Box 593, Stinson Beach CA 94970, 

ST. ELIZABETH SETON CRAB FEED is only 3 weeks away! Feb. 2, 2019, 6 pm social hour and dinner at 7 pm. - $45 - tickets are still available. Mendocino County Fairgrounds. All you can eat crab & salad plus wine to drink. (Tickets: John Schultz 895-9552, Jorge Mejia 895-2778, Colleen Schenck 895-3053)

HERE’S A NAME that may be familiar to you: Lorraine Dechter. Many of you remember her program “The Good Old Fashioned Folk Music Show” which aired for 30 years on KCHO.

She came to Northern California in 1978, and since then she’s worked throughout the North State, delivering the news to communities through public television, newspapers, and, of course, radio. 

Now Lorraine could use our help. After returning to Butte County from Mendocino County where she worked for community radio station KZYX, she moved to Paradise and yes, you guessed it— her home and possessions were all incinerated in the Camp Fire. She was renting and is now having difficulty getting FEMA assistance. Please donate to her through PayPal if you have a PayPal account you can just select pay and put in her email ldechter01@gmail.com

You can also send assistance directly to: Lorraine Dechter, 5721 Scottwood Rd, Paradise Ca 95969

 The Paradise post office is open so she will receive mail at that address. (Shelley Mariposa)

OUR FIRST POP UP CHORUS at Lauren's. We're hoping this becomes a regular event, but now that we have the time, place, leader/teachers and song, we need the singers. You don't need to read music or have a great voice, you just need to commit to a bit of time on Wednesday evening (1/16) and I promise wonderful things can happen. We're learning and singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

2019 WINTER ABUNDANCE FAIR

February 9th is the date for the all-day 2019 Winter Abundance Fair at the Fairgrounds in Boonville. Featured are free workshops for beginning and advanced fruit tree grafting techniques, hands-on fruit tree grafting, and seed saving; seed, scion, and plant exchanges; rootstock and plant sales; and featured speaker Robert Kourik talking about how to create healthy soil organisms. The Fair Boosters will have an organic, local-as-possible lunch for sale. And more! The all-volunteer organizing team is from Mendocino Permaculture, AV Foodshed, UC Master Gardeners, AV Adult School, and others who would like to help. If you are willing to assist with publicity, set-up (Friday afternoon/or and Saturday morning), registration, helping with workshops, or clean up, please email Barbara at bgoodell@mcn.org or call 895-3897.

FARMING FAMILY SEEKING SPACE

Longtime organic gardening and farming family, looking for gardening and farming space. Housing on site (cabin/small house) or the ability to have a tiny home on the land or just farming land are possibilities we are considering. We have references and enjoy growing healthy food for the region and contributing to the local food supply.

Photos of gardens/references available, Dog Friendly (one dog)

Skills include: land crafts, farmer's market experience, farm to table cuisine and more. 

Much Gratitude and Happy New Year, farmingroots1@gmail.com

BALO WINERY of Philo is up for sale at $4,690,000, and had been in escrow for close to that amount for a while. Many people in the Anderson Valley are much more interested in the fate of the nicely re-habbed garage from the 1920s that was also the work of the Balo people. That old garage, now called the Live Oak Building, sits in central Boonville. We hear rumors that something's in the works for the building which, ever since its tune-up, has sat only periodically occupied by a weekend wine sales booth.

FROM ITS MODEST BEGINNINGS as a handful of young, resident Anderson Valley winemakers in the early 1970s, the wine industry now dominates not only the Anderson Valley but Mendocino County, and has also inspired a large ancillary food and accommodations juggernaut pegged to wine tourism. Unlike the unorganized marijuana business, the in-County wine people jealously guard what they assume are their political perquisites, a fact of local life we knew only in theory until we got mugged by its reality when we sued to quiet Anderson Valley's frost fans. The entire industry mobilized against us, as we should have known it would, but has since worked to tune down the annual spring time din.

THOSE LONG ROWS of $20-$40 bottles of wine we see in the supermarkets remain a mystery to me because I seldom see anybody buying a bottle or two at the checkout stand. The economics of wine is a larger mystery. I know grape growers get big Ag tax breaks, but as soon as Two Buck Chuck surfaced those mysterious wine economics came into sharp focus. As Chuck bluntly put in the famous New Yorker story about him, "All this stuff is pretty much the same. I'll sell a forty dollar bottle for three dollars." And he's made a literal fortune doing just that, meaning Chuck cashed in on the glut, which is ongoing.

I'M SURE BALO was and is some kind of massive tax write-off, and I'm just as sure another mini-mogul will soon snap up the property. It comes with a home built by a local guy, Johnny Peterson, who raised apples and sheep and cattle and worked on a road crew to supplement his farm earnings. Perched up a hill above Indian Creek, you can be sure Peterson built his modest retirement home for a lot less than the million dollar kitchen it now features.

AND CRAFT BEER is a mystery equivalent to wine. Breweries are popping up everywhere, and who would have thought the small brewery movement began right here in Boonville. (And a little earlier in Hopland.) We'll make the first claim whether or not Ken Allen and David Norfleet's quality brew was the absolute first to revive community-based beer production, but from its modest beginnings in the basement of the Buckhorn Saloon, Boonville beer was soon on shelves everywhere in America, and on many shelves abroad. But the competition seems awfully crowded anymore, with several relatively new breweries in lightly populated Mendocino County competing with at least a hundred more in NorCal alone.

CRAB FEED THIS SATURDAY!

AMONG OUR MANY blessings right here in Boonville are our annual crab feeds, which also serve as annual meet and greets for lots of people we don't get to see very often. This very Saturday, the 19th of January, and for the very best of community reasons, the Anderson Valley Senior Center brings us its Crab Feed at the Boonville Fairgrounds. Happy Hour at 5:30 (gigantico margaritas!), mounds of crab at 6:30. A hugely great deal at $40 pre-paid, $45 at the door, especially considering the most scintillating company in all of Mendocino County. Forty dollar tickets available at AV Market, Lemons Market and the Senior Center. Or $45 at the door if you decide at the last minute.

ELAINE HORN

I want to thank everyone for all the prayers and love that they have been sending to Elaine, and all of us. And I know a lot of people need closure. Many of you know that Elaine was a leukemia Survivor. She had been in remission for many years, but there are long-term effects from going through the amount of chemotherapy that cured her. We had many extra years with Elaine because she was "one tuff cookie". I know she is resting in peace and well-loved. We are having a small memorial for her here in California with just family.

Elaine loved animals and if you would like to contribute a donation to safehavenfarmsanctuary.org in her name as a tribute to her I know she would love that. Thank you all and take good care of yourselves. 

Joanne Horn, her sister.

PLEASE HELP ONE OF OUR OWN

Tickets are $10.

Fundraiser For Carolyn Livingston & Family.

On Monday, January 14, Carolyn Livingston, our sixth-grade teacher at Anderson Valley elementary, lost her home in a fire. Luckily, her family and pets are safe. Unfortunately, her home was a total loss. To help offset some of the costs that the family will incur, we are having a drawing. There will be six gift baskets including a variety of handmade gifts, soaps, local wine, gift certificates to local markets and restaurants and many more items. We are accepting monetary donations if you are not interested in purchasing a ticket. All donations will be greatly appreciated. Tickets are $10 each. The drawing will be held on Friday, February 1. Call the Elementary School for time and place at 895 3010.

MEET SHERIFF TOM ALLMAN

Program: Law and Order in Mendocino County

AV Unity Club, February 7, 2019, Fairgrounds Dining Room, 1:30pm. The community is invited to join the Unity Club for complimentary cookies and coffee during Sheriff Allman’s presentation. Questions: Val Hanelt, 895-3526.

THE STORM LAST WEDNESDAY INTO THURSDAY was, in its violent winds and heavy rains, emphasized by the thunder crashing down on us about 3am. The deluge closed 128 at Flynn Creek Road to the Coast, as it always does with the big rains. 175 Hopland to Lakeport was closed and the Garcia ran too deep over Highway One between Manchester and Point Arena to permit through traffic this morning (to all but Jan, Jan the Intrepid, Mail Lady) but was passable early afternoon. Rancho Navarro lost power, residents being informed by PG&E's robo-messager that an estimate for power restoration might be available by late Thursday afternoon. Veteran outback dwellers reconciled themselves to low priority status when they bought in. Most are prepared to lose contact with the great world outside, while a relieved minority welcome it. Local Caltrans crews did their usual efficient job keeping the Boonville-Ukiah Road and 128 from Navarro to the Sonoma County line free of the inevitable mudslides and boulders. Ditto for PG&E crews who labor in all kinds of weather and rugged terrain. 

A BOONVILLE READER COMPLAINS: "My Mexican friend who wants to learn better English, and works at Mosswood, told me she took the English class for $11/semester. But if you want to take the Spanish class, it's $259.00 now! At the Elementary. So we're all shit canning the Spanish class at the elementary and buying the Lyrica App instead.” 

THE ADULT SCHOOL'S NOOR DAWOOD EXPLAINS:

We understand there is some confusion about why AV Adult School English classes cost $11 while Spanish classes cost $200, and we are happy to explain why this is the case.

The state has targeted specific objectives for adult education, and we are only allowed to use state funding for those purposes. The state-funded classes/services we provide are: English, High School Equivalency, Citizenship, Basic Computer Skills, Reading and Writing, and Parent Education. These programs are fully funded by the state and thus free to students. (Note that we do administer many of these programs in partnership with Mendocino College, and the college charges $11/semester). Additional state-funded objective areas include Adults with Disabilities and Career Technical Education.

The Adult School strives to respond to needs in our community and provide classes that will be of use to all community members. Unfortunately, many services we’d like to provide -- including Spanish classes for English speakers -- are not eligible for state funding. We thus created “Community Enrichment” classes -- fee-based classes where the amount of money that participants pay is used to cover the cost of the class. 

This semester’s Beginner and Intermediate Spanish classes run for 2 hrs/wk for 15 weeks and cost $200 each. This cost covers the following:

A certificated teacher for 30 hours of instructional time + half hr planning time/class, a Native-Spanish speaker assistant for 30 hours + half hr prep time/class, administrative costs (marketing, facility coordination, human resources, payroll, facility overhead) with a total semester cost of $1,997 ($200/student, if 10 students enroll).

If we have ten students this means each person pays $6.70/hr for a class with fellow community members offering hands-on learning in an Elementary School classroom. As with all of our classes, free childcare is available.

We calculate the cost based on a goal of ten students enrolling per class. If we get more than 10 students, the price goes down. We also offer payment plans and are happy to dialogue with people for whom the cost of the class is a barrier. We know learning a language and taking a weekly class requires a lot of effort and initiative from the students, and seek to make the class as accessible as possible.

The workbook for the class is $56. Students in all of our programs are welcome to either borrow or purchase the corresponding materials. (We don’t provide free books to our English students either.)

We wish the state of California was able to offset the cost of the Spanish classes, as it can be very helpful in CA (and particularly here in AV) to communicate in Spanish, but sadly that is not the case. If you are interested in motivating our representatives to increase funding for Adult Education in this regard, we encourage you to contact them here and here. 

The Adult School exists to increase opportunities for adult learning, however possible. We encourage community members to seek cost-effective ways to learn a new language. Individuals who wish to use online language programs and need an internet connection and/or computer access are welcome to use an Adult School computer during the hours of our Computer class. 

KATHY BAILEY reminds us: “It's your last chance to buy original art from Kisumu, Kenya and necklaces, bags, earrings, mobiles, and more, all to support Equip Manyatta and the Manyatta Youth Resource Centre in Kisumu. Show comes down Sunday. If you have had your eye on an art piece, please make an offer. Prices on some art is negotiable. Thanks again to Lauren's for providing this wonderful opportunity.” (The AVA’s resident aesthete recommends at least one purchase. This stuff is beautiful!)

I ASKED my grandson, a first grader, how many Trumpers were in his class. “One,” he said, “and he likes Lady GaGa too!” 

FRESH MILK SHARES

Hello Anderson Valley. Got Fresh, Golden, Cream-Top, Raw milk? Well, we do! It is delicious and we are excited to share. Our flexible cow herd-share allows locals to join as members of our farm and pick up milk from our farm, 2 block out of downtown Boonville. We will also have eggs, olive oil, yogurt, cheese, and other treats available from the farm. Please see the flyer below for more information. Thanks and we hope to hear from you and see you on the farm soon. (Lambert Lane across second bridge)

WHIMSEY LIVES! Driving up the Ukiah Road one recent morning, as I rounded the corner about three miles up I was delighted to see a pumpkin perched atop a boulder on the south side of the road, which had required some effort by the jolly someone who placed it there. Maybe it was the same spirited person who painted the boulder pawnshop gold at the SoCo end of 128 that looks like the world's biggest nugget. And the same person who drapes the baby fir in Christmas ornaments every year, also on the Ukiah Road. Whoever you are, you've got to know that your whimsey has amused thousands of passersby. If there's anything this country needs more than regular cash, it’s regular laughs.

REMEMBERING MARTIN LUTHER KING on his 90th birthday it occurs to me that lots of people, especially the young, don't know much about him beyond his iconic status as a civil rights martyr and as a day off. And few people will want to recall that King was vilified on a daily basis by the newspapers of the time. Then, presto! magico! millions of Americans were liberals! Still the best book on King is "Martin Luther King, Jr: A Life" by Marshall Frady available in that nifty Penguin series whose biographies range from Elvis (also recommended) to DaVinci. What has always struck me about MLK is the pure courage of the man knowing, as he said, he was doomed but keeping on nevertheless. His home was firebombed with his wife and children in it, the police withdrew even a pretense of protection, every lowdown cracker in the country was out to kill him… And the arch-weirdo, J. Edgar Hoover, was busily taping MLK's private life. And here we are a little more than 50 years later with armies of "liberals" counting on the suddenly unimpeachable FBI to bring down Trump!

MENDOCINO PERMACULTURE’S 36TH ANNUAL WINTER ABUNDANCE WORKSHOP Saturday, February 9, 2019 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Fairgrounds in Boonville — Rain or Shine. Seed, Scion, & Cutting Exchange, Classes + Hands-on Fruit Tree Grafting Clinics

Free classes all day on tree & vine propagation; how to grow your own food; how to save seeds of all kinds of food plants. You can purchase fruit tree rootstocks cheaply here and then graft your own trees from our free scions. Please bring seeds, scions, cuttings, and your love of plants. For more information go to https://mendolocalfood.org/ (scroll down) or call Barbara/Rob at (707) 895-3897, Richard 459-5926, or Mark at 463-8672. See you there!

If you can and want to volunteer this year, please contact Barbara at bgoodell@mcn.org or 895-3897.

ONION STARTS FOR SALE. Bunny Bill will be selling onion starts at the Feb. 9th Winter Abundance Fair. He will have Red River, Copra and Silver Star. Due to low demand, if you want Walla Walla or Leeks, you are strongly encouraged to call him at 895-2609. He may not order them this year. Get your beds ready!

PETIT TETON MONTHLY FARM REPORT - DECEMBER 2018

We are happy to see 2018 in the rear-view mirror, not that it looks any better that way, but it is smaller, slightly faded and rain spattered which may make it less significant. We are also happy watching the rain not just spatter but soak everything in our valley, and we were thrilled to have to turn over our full to the brim 5" rain gauge after two days of downpour and for the fifth time this season. It is a joy and a relief to see green hills and to listen to the tree frogs chorusing again. Of course we're aware that the political evils have not been expunged and that this year will be painful. But we are catching a scent of change in the air - a whiff of hope is wafting over us and we are hoping some sanity will also, eventually. Best wishes for this year and take care of yourselves and others. 

Nikki Auschnitt and Steve Kreig

DAVID KING WRITES about the sorry condition of the Comptche-Ukiah road:

“Due to our soil being Franciscan shale we are prone to slides and the roads giving way due to saturation. Comptche Ukiah road is prone to these problems and huge amounts of our tax dollars have gone into repairs. What concerned me is between Tom Bell flats and the town of Comptche some government agency installed cables on some logs to create a log jam. Log jams themselves don’t concern me because at first glance it seems like a great idea to slow down the water so salmon have a place to rest. My concern is in the location of the log jam. They have chosen to put it right next to the road. In turn it substantially raises the water level on the high side and adds saturation to the ground. So naturally we see the road starting to give out. Majority of the river is well off the road except for this one location. For the life of me I can’t see why they would jeopardize public safety and stick us with the costly repair of the road. Besides the safety issue I don’t think it is right that we have use our tax dollars to fix the road that a non county agency undermined. As for the salmon safety I feel it is a bad idea to be so close to the road. I have seen some shady characters parked there walking towards the low side of the log jam. The low side is where you will find the salmon trying to get past the log jam. I have no proof but one of the shady character I witnessed is a frequent flyer on our sheriff booking logs and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was poaching salmon. Let’s not remember this is the same kind of stream Nixon paid people to pull everything out of the streams so they would run faster so I may be having some trust issues in regards to government ineptitude.”

NO FOOL like an old fool. I couldn't resist the annual free throw contest at Drake High School last Saturday morning. For ten bucks benefitting The Needy Families of Marin, and all ages welcome, I went 6 for 25. But no air balls! Around the rim every time! The gaffer shooting next to me looked like he was shooting cannonballs, firing up ten air balls in a row. My 24% on the morning was, among the dentured class, almost respectable.

RENEE WYANT of the Senior Center reports that the weekend's crab feed was "a great turn out! Probably the most ever!" The silent auction featured a pair of donated Warrior tickets successfully bid on by Renee's bro, Bryan Wyant. And one more crab feed coming up, this one benefitting the Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church on Saturday evening February 2nd.

EVA HOLCOMB has died. A lovely and truly gracious lady has left us. It’s not an exaggeration to say that everyone who knew Eva is saddened and feels diminished at the news of her passing. Our deepest, most heartfelt condolences to the Holcomb and Pardini families. A full obituary will follow. 

FUNDRAISER For Carolyn Livingston & Family. Tickets are $10. On Monday, January 14, Carolyn Livingston, our sixth-grade teacher at Anderson Valley elementary, lost her home in a fire. Luckily, her family and pets are safe. Unfortunately, her home was a total loss. To help offset some of the costs that the family will incur, we are having a drawing. There will be six gift baskets including a variety of handmade gifts, soaps, local wine, gift certificates to local markets and restaurants and many more items. We are accepting monetary donations if you are not interested in purchasing a ticket. All donations will be greatly appreciated. Tickets are $10 each. The drawing will be held on Friday, February 1. Call the Elementary School for time and place at 895 3010. Tickets are available now. Call Belma or Nicole for more details. $10 each Tickets are being sold at AVHS, AVES, Boont Berry, Mosswood Café, and Poleeko Roadhouse. Two sets of Warriors tickets for the February 10th game have just been added. 

BILL HARGRAVE of Rancho Navarro passed away at his home least week. We have no further details, but he had been a resident of Navarro for about ten years, some of those years fairly turbulent. Mike Saner was associated with Hargrave before they fell out, leaving Saner adrift in the area until Saner shot Willie Martinez to death two years ago as Willie sat down to a meal at Fritz Ohm's place. Saner has been confined to the County Jail ever since while the charges against him are weighed and debated by the authorities.

THE GOOD NEWS. A solid rumor says Anne Fashauer is in escrow to buy the Live Oak Building in central Boonville. If true, and I’ll bet it is, good things are sure to follow. One good thing already happening in the venerable, tuned up structure that began life way back as a garage, is Andy Duvigneaud’s, Bee Hunter.  Anne’s winery, Witching Stick, presently based in Philo, is sure to follow. 

GARDEN SEASON APPROACHES. Some of the raised beds (14X4) have become available at the Elder Home property in Boonville. $30 per year, April 1st to the end of March. Rich soil and irrigation included. Contact Peggy Ridley for more info. Possible inground beds also available.

ONLY a true atheist could fail to appreciate Monday’s spectacular sunrise, and I hope lots of you were awake to see it. 

A READER tells me there’s a rock and roll band based in Detroit called Anderson Valley. So I googled it and found the group consists of three people surname Anderson and one called Valley. The music? I’ll leave that for better attuned people to decide.

AV ART GUILD SHOW — Works of fine arts and crafts by members of the Anderson Valley Art Guild are on display at Lauren's Restaurant, Boonville. Now through early March.

SCAM ALERT. Phone call claiming to be PG&E about to shut off power because of failure to pay smart meter deposit. $398.28 deposit required, to be refunded in 3 months. Payment accepted at CVS and Rite-Aid express payment kiosks. I am not aware of these kiosks. Fortunately, PG&E confirmed this as a scam. Although it sounds ridiculously obvious in the reading, it sounds very convincing on the phone, as they give you an extension number and a switch over to a “supervisor,” who “apologizes” for this disruption. I wonder what these people think of themselves as they go to sleep at night.

AGRICULTURAL FAMILY LOOKING FOR NEW HOME: We would like to grow flowers, veggies, culinary herbs and other food crops. Rustic/off grid fine. We have pictures of previous gardens. Cabin, cottage, yurt/efficient house with garden/farm space. 707-683-2369

MUCH PRAISE for the mechanic work of Rich Farley, “a great go-to guy for car repair right here in Anderson Valley. Fixed my Toyota right up, quickly and for a more-than-fair-price. Also available at Starr these days.”

VARIETY SHOW: It's that time of year again: the Anderson Valley Grange's 28th annual Variety Show is on Friday March 8th and Saturday March 9th, at the Anderson Valley Grange.  We need YOU and your acts onstage!  Please contact Captain Rainbow at 895-3807, or Robyn at 272-2127 (you can text her, too) if you have a talent, skill, animal, joke, or anything else you'd like to put onstage for all of us to enjoy.  We'll discuss what you need for rehearsals and for the night of the show.  We have professional calibre lights and sound, and the kindest, most enthusiastic and forgiving audience found anywhere in the world.  This is your big chance to show us what you've got!

"I AM LOOKING for local group therapy sessions…or a book-club…or just people to talk to… I find it hard to connect in this valley… Yeah, I may be too old, etc. But, as a social animal, I don't want to have to depend on bars for conversation (besides, I have stopped drinking alcohol…)"

WE NOTED this plaintive note on one of the electronic gizmo pages, which confirms the opinion of lots of people in the Anderson Valley, and not only the newcomers, that this place can be a tough social nut to crack. Pursuing the nut theme, the nut of the prob is the transient nature of the place, of the whole country for that matter, and leaving aside the old standbys of social class and race, people come and people go, lots of them simply disappearing until we notice they’re not there. People born and raised here enjoy a community based on a shared psycho-social experience. En masse you find them at the crab feeds, old timer funerals and, in smaller groups, the Redwood Drive-in. They used to be able to get drunk and fight at the old Boonville Lodge but local society has been radically blanded down over the past forty years, going from Flannery O'Conner to John Updike, you might say. The back-to-the landers group around the Philo Grange and Boont Berry Farm. Ditto for the neo-hippies. The wine people, one supposes, have a community of sorts where they surreptitiously criticize each other's wines and talk about radicchio recipes while one-upping one another with tall talk about their excursions to France. The airport people socialize among themselves now and then, but tend to be aeronautically single-minded. Lauren's Restaurant is a social focal point for both Nice People and nice people, with all sorts of community-oriented nights set aside for fun stuff like the Trivia Night and more serious discussions about, and not to put too fine a point on it, death. The ever-larger local Mexican community, much of it first generation and still suffering the two-way language barrier, remains largely apart from the Anderson Valley branches of Gringolandia, although Mosswood Market has created a pleasant cross-over intersection and second generation Mexicans have learned some English at the local schools and have more or less fully integrated themselves into what’s here. Locals truly desperate for not particularly sympathetic company, and who dare risk being seen at the ava's office or, worse, in the company of one of the beasts lurking there, are assured of lively exchanges of views with drop-ins welcome, free advice and candid personality assessments per request. But anybody who dares say in our presence, “Gosh, really, I think Joe Biden would make a great president,” is not only unwelcome but subject to physical attack.

GET YOUR FIRE EXTINGUISHERS inspected and serviced at the fire house in Boonville, Friday, February 15 at 14281 Hwy 128. Extinguishers will also be available for purchase. Service by Ukiah Oxygen Supply from 9am to 2pm Service fees begin at $15. A limited supply of fire extinguishers will be for sale from $50 to $120. More info: 895-2020.

BOB DEMPEL WRITES: "I was saddened to read your first paragraph on Valley People telling us of the death of Eva Pardini-Holcomb. As I have previously mentioned in your paper Eva was the prettiest girl in Anderson Valley. We maintained our friendship through showing sheep at the fairs, 4-H summer camp, and later in life when husband Bill was on the Boonville Fair Board and I was on the Ukiah Fair board. One of the cherished photos I lost in the October 2017 fire was a picture of the four of us at the Western Fair Convention. Dear friend for 70 years."

SNOW at the upper elevations of the Boonville-Ukiah Road late Monday morning. And Monday afternoon, sleet on the Valley floor followed by fifteen minutes of snow beginning at 2:45. Then sun at 2:50, a rainbow at 2:55 and, all in all, perhaps the most exciting 15 minutes of weather in Boonville history!

BE THERE! The Winter Abundance Workshop is this Saturday, February 9th at the Boonville Fairgrounds from 9-4. Tree and vine propagation presentations and clinics; a seed, scion and cutting exchange; demos on how to collect your own seed; and a talk by Robert Kourik about how to build healthy soil — all free. Check it out at www.mendolocalfood.org

CRAB FEED WINNERS! On Saturday, February 2 St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Mission held its 17th Annual Crab Feed at the Apple Hall in Boonville. A sold out crowd of 340 enjoyed fresh crab, salad, and bread complimented by Balo Estate Pinot and Pinot Gris. A raffle followed with over 35 prizes. Then the silent auction for a cellphone and Grand Prize drawing: Two free tickets to next year’s event on February 1, 2020 which was won by Jerry Karp. A collection was taken up for the High School students who served the event and each received $56 for their well-appreciated efforts. 

LOCAL BOY MAKES GOOD San Francisco Mayor London Breed has named Dr. Grant Colfax as the new Director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Dr. Colfax was raised in Boonville, attended Harvard College and Medical School and did his residency at UCSF. Dr. Colfax has been working as Marin County’s Director of Public Health. He is the oldest of the four sons of David and Micki Colfax of Boonville, all of them home schooled, three of them Harvard graduates.

IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN—the Anderson Valley Grange’s 28th annual Variety Show is on Friday March 8th and Saturday March 9th, (these are the actual dates for 2019, not the bogus bit we put out last week) at the Anderson Valley Grange. We need YOU and your acts onstage! Please contact Captain Rainbow at 895-3807, or Robyn at 272-2127 (you can text her, too) if you have a talent, skill, animal, joke, or anything else you'd like to put onstage for all of us to enjoy. We'll discuss what you need for rehearsals and for the night of the show. We have professional caliber lights and sound, and the kindest, most enthusiastic and forgiving audience found anywhere in the world. This is your big chance to show us what you've got! Our rehearsals will be the weekend before the show, and we can give you all of the details when you call. Don't be shy, we really do want to see any zany thing you've got in mind. 

BOONVILLE OLD TIMER JOAN BURROUGHS WRITES:

Re: Live Oak Garage

Now that the Live Oak Garage is in the mighty news, I thought you might enjoy seeing this great old photo. The Packard car is fondly remembered because Ed Singley would occasionally haul his wayward sheep around in it. He said it was their car, they earned it. 

SUPER BOWL: First half: nothing but two field goals. Half time: tattooed morons hop around shouting unintelligibly accompanied by explosions and strobe lights. Second half: The master, Tom Brady, The Gronk, Edelman, take over. Bob Dylan sings Blowing in the Wind to advertise Budweiser. A cryonic Andy Warhol eats a hamburger to advertise whatever. Post game: hugs, jocks milling around saying, "I love you, bro." Best line goes to J. Kunstler: “Local hero rapper Big Boi’s triumphal entry in a limo, nearly lost inside what looked like the pelt of a giant ground sloth — an eight-year-old’s idea of what it means to be important.”

THE CHANGING of the guard at the Boonville Hotel has caused quite a stir among local foodies. The new chief chef, as introduced elsewhere on this page, is eliciting raves, as from this local diner: “We ate at the Hotel the other night. The new chef is not only a great guy with an adorable new baby girl, he is a genius. We were astonished at the nuanced unique absolutely amazing food. It was at a high price, but I doubt you would find the most renowned place in the City to provide any more remarkable fare. He and his wife are expecting another baby soon. You would like this man. Completely down to earth and real. He has quite a talent.” 

ANGELA DEWITT REMINDS US: Get your fire extinguishers inspected and serviced at the firehouse in Boonville, Friday, February 15 at 14281 Hwy 128. Extinguishers will also be available for purchase. Service by Ukiah Oxygen Supply from 9am to 2pm. Service fees begin at $15. A limited supply of fire extinguishers will be for sale from $50 to $120. More info: 895-2020.

CHOCOLATE DIPPED STRAWBERRIES, $25

Boonville — This Valentine’s Day celebrate your special one with some chocolate dipped strawberries! Chocoberries!

Mosswood Market is taking orders now! Receive a free rose with your purchase! Hurry...last day to order is February 11th! 

Provided by: La Buena Michoacana in Ukiah

FRESH MILK SHARES. Hello Anderson Valley. Got Fresh, Golden, Cream-Top, Raw milk? Well we do! It is delicious and we are excited to share. Our flexible cow herd-share allows locals to join as members of our farm and pick up milk from our farm, 2 block out of downtown Boonville (on Lambert Lane). We will also have eggs, olive oil, yogurt, cheese, and other treats available from the farm. Please see the flyer below for more information. Thanks and we hope to hear from you and see you on the farm soon

THE ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE! Empowering older adults to remain active, connected and independent in the place they call home while enhancing the quality of life in our community.

The membership fee is $25 a month (or $275 a year) per individual, and $40 a month (or $440 a year) per couple. You can join whenever you like, and the annual fee will be pro-rated. Members pay fees to fund the Village Coordinator position. The Village concept is catching on all across the United States, as people who are growing older are seeking support to maintain their independence. Anderson Valley is building our own Village for the same purpose. Need a ride to the doctor? Someone to walk your dog when you’re sick? A couple of meals because you’ve twisted an ankle? The Village can help. Social outings, movies, seminars or help maneuvering through system? All of that and more can be available to Village members. Membership launch party this Sunday (February 10th) at Lauren’s Restaurant, 4-530pm. Refreshments provided.

AV GRANGE LOCAL ORGANIC PANCAKE BREAKFAST Sunday, Feb 10 from 8:30 to 11 AM featuring natural bacon or sausage, scrambled eggs and buttermilk pancakes made from Mendocino Grain Project flour. Any combination plus a gluten free version $5-10. It’s a great place to meet up or just start Sunday. If you want to sing or play music for your meal, a couple of tunes puts breakfast in front of you!

A READER WRITES: "I was thinking there might be a newsworthy story around vacant homes that I've seen in my neighborhood (Rancho Navarro) and near my work in Fort Bragg. Both homes have been vacant for over a year (one for at least 2-3 years). The home in my neighborhood is apparently going through a foreclosure process, but I'm not sure about the second. I think a little digging would show some shady characters involved, most likely in the cannabis industry, but I'm speculating there. In any case, I thought it might be of interest considering the housing crisis we have in this county." 

ONE BIG PROB is the large number of houses converted to transients of the AirBnB type, and at places like Rancho Navarro and all over northeast Mendocino County from Willits to Murder Mountain and beyond lots of properties have been rented to produce various kinds of dope. In Anderson Valley, and up and down the Mendo coast, employed people, some with children, can't find rentals because of the wholesale conversion of rental properties to accommodations for high end transients. Why even my former home in Boonville, basically a collection of Class K shacks, now brings $750 a night as an Air B&B rental! That crowded half-acre with bad water and a problematical septic system used to be home to as many as a dozen people, all of them local, all of them locally employed.

CAMP NAVARRO is beginning to hire staff (lead housekeeper, maintenance and event sales manager) for the 2019 season. A current listing of jobs can be found at our website under the careers section. This page will be constantly updated with new positions in the next couple of weeks/months including kitchen, server, event support, bartender, housekeeper and other positions. We look forward to an exciting year ahead welcome you to be a part of our future. campnavarro.com

A CALLER wanted to know what happened to the jump in Jonah Raskin's story about the colorful Oaky Joe Munson, which appeared in the January 23rd edition of the AVA. Called "In & Out of Solitary," the story began on page 5 and promised, "Continued on page 5." In fact, the article continued on page 7 under the possibly misleading "Solitary." But it's all there. Just a minor mix-up in the jumps.

ANOTHER CALLER suggested we boost our cover price to two dollars and go back to 12 pages every week. He said he wasn't a cyber-guy and had no intention of becoming one. In more vivid terms he denounced his local papers, singling out the Press Democrat for special opprobrium. I replied that we are presently able to cover our costs with a tiny bit left over, meaning we're actually doing a little better than, say, the SF Chron, which has been hemorrhaging money for a long time. But a paper-paper is increasingly expensive to produce, what with constant increases in the price of newsprint (no help from a Trump-imposed tariff on the cost of Canadian paper) and regular hikes in postage costs that hurt us because we mail a lot of papers outtahere. Raising the newsstand price would probably hurt us more than help, and probably propel even more readers to cyber-frivolity. Paper-papers are doomed, and as one dino to another, they beat hell out of the daily electronic din. The pure tactile pleasure of holding and reading a broadsheet newspaper was and is far more satisfying than gazing into a phone all day. We do, however, publish a daily on-line paper. Because there’s no space limits in cyber-land, we’re able to post tons of stuff we can’t fit into our newsprint format. Newsprint subscribers can get the cyber-edition free with a newsprint subscription. The cyber-edition alone will cost you $25. Both are well worth the price of admission.

C.T. ROWE of Upper Peachland Road has successfully (and expensively) defended himself against a bullying complaint by the Anderson Valley Land Trust that the Rowe property was somehow in violation of the Trust’s lofty preservationist standards. Rowe was found not in violation of his agreement with the Land Trust, and here’s hoping Judge Nadel will award him the considerable attorney fees he had to spend to defend himself against utterly false charges.

THE DEATH of a 55-year-old Rancho Navarro woman on Friday, the 1st of February has been recorded but her name and cause of death has not yet been revealed.

THE ANDERSON VALLEY GRANGE’S 28th annual Variety Show is on Friday March 8th and Saturday March 9th, and we will make room for you! That means YOU, or your funny/weird/talented friend or ANIMAL. We have had dogs, cats, horses, sheep, alpacas, cattle, iguanas, goats, pythons, doves, turtles, but never parrots, llamas, wombats...what kind of animal do YOU have, and what can it do? We want to see it!! Please contact Captain Rainbow at 895-3807, or Robyn at 272-2127 (you can text her, too) if you have a talent, skill, animal, joke, or anything else you'd like to put onstage for all of us to enjoy. We have rehearsals the weekend before the show, and we can illuminate and amplify anything. The best part is the A.V. audience, we're the most enthusiastic folk found anywhere. You won't find a better place to strut your stuff!

I'M VERY SORRY to learn that Diane Hering is quite ill and presently confined to a Ukiah nursing home. A smart, capable person as only a person affiliated with the Boonville newspaper can be, Diane worked with us way back at the dawn of the enterprise. And over in Lakeport, where he’s resting after suffering a stroke, we find Andreas Alvarado, a long-time resident of Boonville where his military bearing as he walked through town has always made him unmistakable. 

DON’T know the author, but this is what it pretty much boils down to: "We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom — the soap box; the ballot box; the jury box; and the cartridge box."

HARVEY READING comments on Boonville’s proposed sewage system: 

“’Although the engineers continue to insist that treated effluent is not very smelly, some locals are still skeptical.’ I would agree with the engineers.The small town (+/- 650 republicans) where I live has its treatment facility less than half a mile from where I live. Others live even closer. I have never noticed any odors from it. There was a time though, shortly after my residency here began, when the town fathers, who had not long before approved construction and operation of a mushroom growing and processing plant that was VERY odoriferous, would tell us that what we were smelling was the treatment pond! The original owner of the mushroom plant, a crook of renown, who had been run out of California for his sloppy management, went under a few years later and the plant now is run by a more environmentally oriented engineer, using techniques that avoid the odor problem. Even so, the town now has a grant for putting its treatment plant underground, which is probably better in the long run anyway. Now, if some two-bit-wide-spot-in-the-road of a town in Wyoming can do that, surely a small town in brilliant California can do as much. Doncha think?”

STARTLED TO READ this headline in this morning's on-line Press Democrat: "It smells like farts if you open your window’ — pollution from Mexico fouls border city." If you included this vulgarity in a letter-to-the-editor of that or any other paper your letter would either be tossed or the fart edited out by the old farts who edit the thing. Another odd headline from the PD: “Ted Bundy’s murderous charm still polarizes.” Huh? There are people for Ted Bundy?

INTERESTED in learning about Zero Waste? Come hear about what is happening in Sonoma County and discuss what we might do in Anderson Valley on Weds. 2/20 2:30 - 4:30 at the Boonville Firehouse community room. Potia Sinnott of Zero Waste Action will introduce Zero Waste and Sonoma County’s new ZeroWaste initiatives followed by a short discussion of how we can start Anderson Valley moving toward ZeroWaste on Feb. 20, 2019 from 2:30 to 4:30, Boonville Fire House. More info: Donna, 684-0325.

STAN PESKETT’S “Valley Swan Song — Pop Up Exhibition of art created in Mendocino County since 2002” packed ’em in Sunday afternoon on the ground floor of the Farrer Building downtown Boonville where Stan’s art is on exhibit. The award-winning BBC2 documentary called ‘Rags to Riches’ shown at Sunday’s event featured Stan whose New York gallery first exhibited the now famous Jean Michel Basquiat. Stan is soon headed back to his native England after a long and productive stay in the Anderson Valley.

A PACKED HOUSE also assembled at Lauren’s Restaurant to enthusiastically sign up for and generally support the Anderson Valley Village, a collective effort to maintain the elderly in their homes. Lauren herself being the prime mover, and a large swathe of us not getting younger, all praise to Lauren for taking this much needed initiative.

WHY THERE'S A HOUSING SHORTAGE, a reader writes: 

"This first home is apparently not for sale or rent, but it has a Zillow listing. It's been vacant for at least a couple of years. Prior to that it looked like some shady dudes were using it for a "business" of sorts. Now it's just totally empty. 

zillow.com/homedetails/32900-Gibney-Ln-Fort-Bragg-CA-95437/19203439_zpid/

This one in Rancho Navarro has also been vacant for at least 2-3 years. It's apparently going thru foreclosure, but not very quickly. A local real estate agent, Vivian Reese (813-7430), is connected to the property, but she's pretty cryptic about the status of it. 

trulia.com/p/ca/philo/18300-appian-way-philo-ca-95466--2197747766

Like I said, I think someone could find a 100 similar examples in this county with the same probable story line: weed prospectors bought these properties at the height of the market (prior to 2009 recession) and tried to float payments on black market sales. Now that strategy isn't viable anymore so these buildings sit empty for an indefinite period since they are so far under water. It's a lame situation" 

YORKVILLE MARKET REMINDER

Bring your loved one(s) for our gourmet Valentine’s Day multi-course dinner on Thursday, February 14th. Sue, our local piano legend will be playing love songs for the evening: $50 to $55 per person, $70 to $75 with wine pairing

Reservations Required, seating is limited and will be on a first come first served basis. Please call the Market at (707) 894-9456 or stop in and let us know.

R.D. BEACON WRITES:

We have lost a good friend, a long time resident to the community of Elk. Eddie McKinsey was a longtime resident and passed away last Sunday in his sleep after a short illness. In the early years he worked for Daniels and Ross Lumber company. Later on he worked for Greenwood Lumber Company and then he went to work for the Mendocino County Department of Public Works working out of the Point Arena yard. We will miss him greatly.

NEWS FROM THE BEWILDERED PIG. Our first weekend open after a month off was exciting! Finding the “rhythm” with all new entrees is always a bit daunting, but it was really fun, and our guests really enjoyed all of the new dishes! We are excited to be able to offer our Chef’s Tasting Menu without reservations now! Too many good choices meant that we needed to offer guests all of it! We offer 5 courses for $99 and two menu supplement options. Wine Pairings are also optional. (Janelle Weaver) 707-895-2088 

JUST SAYIN' but I don't see the value, nutritional or instructional, of Girl Scout Cookies. Mass manufactured in Louisville, Kentucky, the Girl Scouts are selling them all over the place, including Mendo where I bought my negative food value nuggets from the daughter of a friend. If the Scouts could home bake a sugar-free cookie as a real-life lesson in the joys of free enterprise I'd be first in line and much more enthusiastic about the annual sales. 

THE VALLEY HUB is a local facebook page. A colleague says I've been banned from Valley Hub or, in facebook-speak, unfriended from it. I didn't know I'd been friended in the first place by the Baxter Winery of Philo, creators of Valley Hub, and neither entity known to me before Valley Hub kept popping up on my own blank but often visited facebook page. And now it doesn't. Unfriended. Boo hoo. I don't post stuff on my page but have managed to accumulate friends I never knew I had. Everybody and his bro seems to have a facebook page, me included, although mine’s inactive and I can't remember why or how I got one. 

BOONVILLE WATER-SEWER PROJECT PLANNING & FINANCING NOTES: 

According to a transcript of last week’s “Boonville Planners” meeting with interested locals and county and state officials, Community Services District Board Chair Valerie Hanelt said that “At this time our financing situation looks good. We have been assured that the private laterals for the sewer system will be paid for. We have also been assured that between Ground Water Funding and Prop 1 funding we will probably be fully funded for the infrastructure for Sewer project. We are close for the Drinking Water. We are looking for a grant for private hook ups to the water meters from the Community Development Block Grants. We are looking to very little outlay of expense from parcel owners for the cost of infrastructure.” 

ANOTHER INTERESTING COMMENT was from AV Health Center Director Chloe Guazzone-Rugabregt: “One important perspective is renters who are not in charge of the systems in the places they rent. Landowners do not always take care of their systems and we see the repercussions.” Is Ms. Guazzone-Rugabregt implying that there’s a demonstrable link between poorly maintained septic systems and some of the illnesses being treated at the Health Center? Apparently so. Health Center Nurse-Practitioner Luiza Savin added, “A lot of people can’t afford to maintain their water systems. It’s hard to put that responsibility on someone who can’t afford it. There are a lot of disparate outcomes in Boonville, and especially the Latino population definitely suffers from not having access to safe public water.” Ms. Guazzone-Rugabregt continued, “It’s hard for us to know on a statistical level when there is an outbreak whether we can attribute the health issues to the water; but for us if we have a couple of kids with gastroenteritis or colitis and the stool testing comes back positive for E-Coli bacteria – there are many factors – but definitely water could be a source of it.”

THERE WAS CONSIDERABLE DISCUSSION of the possibility that the local water table is subject to contamination because in some areas it is fairly shallow and in some cases the water table is close to septic systems, whether “functional” or not.

IT APPEARS that the Boonville Planners and the engineering consultants have abandoned plans for an underground disposal site for the treated sewage outflow. Although the engineers continue to insist that treated effluent is not very smelly, some locals are still skeptical. Sewage system engineer Dave Coleman said, “If you go right on top of the wastewater treatment plant (a 12x12x50’ box) you might smell a musty smell from the aerated wastewater. It’s not the same smell as a septic tank because it is not anaerobic; it is not septic. When you are 100’ away you would not smell it.” Nevertheless, the planners are now looking at sites on the south end of town, pending agreement from landowners at that (higher) end of town. 

AT ONE POINT, Roy O’Connor from the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control staff was asked about the smells emanating from the AV Brewing facility: “Brewery wastes are 300-400 times as bad as household,” replied O’Connor.

AS FAR AS WATER SOURCES GO, Water system engineer Jack Locey said, “Because of the high ground water (in the Boonville area), all the wells developed for private residences tend to include only 20’ sanitary seals. This is inadequate for public water systems. The Water Board considers a seal less than 50’ to be under the influence of surface water and the mitigation for that is essentially you tack on extra treatment process that assumes the water could have the same constituents in it that you would find if you were drawing directly from a creek. In each of these cluster locations we will bring the raw water to a centralized small treatment facility. We consistently noted elevated levels of manganese, sometimes iron in the groundwater. Both of those elements can be treated by a simple filtration process. So that process would be provided at the front end of the treatment train, then followed up by simple cartridge filtration. There are inexpensive large-scale cartridge filters that can accomplish the surface water treatment requirements at the tail end of the filtration process. Final treatment would consist of disinfection [typically chlorine] before that water is discharged into the distribution system.”

THE ABANDONMENT of the original leach field area near the airport means that the Environmental Review will have to be revised to address whatever new site is selected which means the EIR will be pushed back to later in 2019. At that time the engineers will estimate what they think the monthly service fees will be for water and sewer. Previously, the Community Services District officials have said that because Boonville is classified as a low-income area the cost of the monthly service cannot exceed 2% of average monthly household income as determined by the latest census.

CSD TRUSTEE Larry Mailliard (of Yorkville) concluded, “If we don’t do it now with the money that’s available…It was first started in the 50s, and then the 70s. I knew about it in the 80s. Here you have the opportunity. I don’t live in the district, I live eight miles thataway. If you don’t take advantage of the opportunity now when it is virtually free [i.e., construction], it [the grant money] won’t be available and the water situation will be 10 times worse.” (Mark Scaramella)

THE AV VILLAGE is supporting Emergency Response Planning in neighborhoods in Anderson Valley. Come hear Fire Chief Andres Avila, Sheriff Tom Allman and other speakers talk about how to organize your neighborhood to be ready for an emergency. Sunday, March 10, Lauren’s Restaurant in downtown Boonville, 4-5:30pm. “Planning Tomorrow, Enjoying Today!”

THE AVA'S EMAIL stopped coming in sometime Friday night. The inbox remained silent until Saturday afternoon, when a slow trickle began coming in. It is unknown how much, if any, was lost, so we'd like to apologize, in advance, for any loss that may have resulted.

WE ALSO MOVED our website to a new webhost last week, and experienced some ups and downs with that process. We still need to upgrade to a more robust server with the new host, which we planned on doing Monday afternoon. Please bear with us as we iron these cyber wrinkles out.

SHAMROCKS & SALSA. Mark your calendars for St. Patrick’s Day, Sunday, March 17 at 3:00 at Lauren’s if you want to join a celebration of the publication of Jerry Cox’s book “Shamrocks and Salsa.”  There will be brief readings from the book by Jerry’s family and time to share stories about Jerry.  Light refreshments will be served and the bar will be open.  The book will be available for purchase for $15.  If you are celebrating St Patrick’s Day in a different way and can’t come to Lauren’s, you can order the book at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble on line, the Apple Store or Xulonpress.com  The e-version is $9 and the paperback is $21 if you order it on line.  

POP-UP CHORUS AT LAUREN’S: Tonight (Wednesday, Feb. 27. 7:30pm. Singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, again. ($5 donation).

THAT SMALL NAVARRO PARCEL featuring redwoods and an ancient structure not far from the Navarro Store has been sold to Katherine Mortimer and Robert Bruen, believed to be from Ukiah. The acre-plus has been for sale for some time.

INTIMATION OF SPRING. Three days of frigid mornings, cool sun-struck days, daffodils, the faint scent of acacia, and a full moon rising in clear skies. Four days later, winter resumes with big rains, road closures, downed trees, and power outages. April may be the cruelest month, “breeding lilacs out of the dead land” but no sign of lilacs at my house as winter roars on.

JUST as The Valley's green is greenest, some of our soul-free industrial winemakers ribbon their vineyards with death, row after row of chemical poisons. Weed control, they say. And the stuff runs off into the streams and the rivers and we wonder where the fish went, the frogs having croaked their last years ago. Then, when the days heat up, here comes another mass dosage of pesticides and we wonder where the honey bees have gone.

DESPITE GALES of blustery vows from one of the owners, Willits mayor Burton, never ever to have anything to do with the marijuana industry, a cannabis cultivation permit for the old Remco site in central Willits has been filed.

THE JANUARY REPORT from Petit Teton, a small farm in the Anderson Valley:

We are happily enjoying weather - rain, sleet, snow, thunder, lightning - and water running everywhere. What a relief.

Nature is breathing deeply and turning from brown to white (snow) to green. The other day I noticed an orange bellied salamander (a California newt, I believe) with the tip of a big worm in its mouth ready to suck it out of the ground. It saw me peering down and moved away. My feelings were mixed since I saved a worm but prevented a meal. 

In other animal news, ChiChi, our 10-year-old German/Australian Shepard mix, suddenly expressed pain when touched, first on her jaw which led us to think a tooth issue, but no sign of any when we took her to the vet. Then on her head and neck; the vet was puzzled because she never even whimpered when in the office. Then all over. I looked online and guessed that she had tick borne Lyme disease and when I suggested this diagnosis to the vet, he concurred, saying good call and telling me that our area is the worst in the country for disease carrying ticks. After one day on antibiotics she was nearly her old self. The full course is several weeks. 

Just a few days ago, one of our two 4-month-old gilt pigs stopped eating and refused to get up. She's a bit young to be in heat so we checked her eyes for yellowing, ears for heat and nose for wetness. We ruled out pneumonia since all were normal, so we forced her to stand up and the problem became obvious - one hind leg was sprained. Not surprising since the two of them chase around their large mucky pen all day and falling is always a risk. Luckily it's another two months until they go to market, enough time to heal we hope, because the USDA processor will not accept lame animals. We, on the other hand, are in the bloom of health (well, sort of - not bad for older folks with the usual aches and pains), and we still get our chores done daily. We hope that you, too, are doing well and getting it all done. Take care in these rather frightening times.

Nikki Auschnitt and Steve Kreig